


Behold the Depths of Depravity and Decay

by aspiringaspie, LittleDancingRat



Category: American Psycho - All Media Types, Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Drugs, Emetophobia, F/M, Hallucinations, Infected!Patrick, Mental Health Issues, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possession, Temporary Character Death, Violence, Vomiting, Wiggly!Paul Owen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:00:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25447999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspiringaspie/pseuds/aspiringaspie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleDancingRat/pseuds/LittleDancingRat
Summary: Patrick sets the suitcase on the floor of his apartment as he steps past the threshold, closing and locking the door behind him (had he left it open?). He takes three steps forward, expecting to see the horrific and gory display he’d left behind. What he sees instead makes the blood drain from his face.The body is gone.(or: the wiggly!paul owen and infected!patrick bateman fic that no one asked for)
Relationships: Patrick Bateman/Jean
Comments: 11
Kudos: 13





	1. i feel it in my heart that it’s all about to start.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick Bateman invites Paul Owen over to his apartment for drinks on Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [edits 8/12/20: changed to present tense, also some more details]

There's too much fucking red. Too much _fucking_ red. 

Patrick Bateman feels like he’s entered the seventh layer of Hell. Or maybe it's the ninth? One of them, it doesn’t matter, it's _Hell._ The holidays are a difficult time for everyone, it's an indisputable fact, it just seems to be a thousand times more difficult for Patrick. Before dressing in his tuxedo and leaving his apartment, he must have mixed in three (or five?) different drugs, including Xanax and, if he can recall, ecstasy. He’d nearly tripped over his own feet upon arriving at his girlfriend (fiancée?), Evelyn Williams’s, Christmas party, already abuzz with guests. He hadn’t been able to stop shaking, hadn’t been able to stop breathing heavily like some sort of feral dog. 

It had been all too much. Too. Much. _Red._ The red had reminded him of _blood_ , and at some point he’d started to hallucinate everyone at the party as walking corpses, some missing limbs, some skinned. He's certain that Evelyn had spoken to him at some point, but all he can focus on is his labored breathing, Courtney’s decapitated body, and whether or not Luis’s fingers would make a good decoration throughout the Christmas tree. Or maybe a necklace for Evelyn. 

At some point during the night, suffering an _intense_ panic attack, Patrick stands in the corner of an empty room with a glass of chardonnay, his fingers trembling, the drink spilling over the rim of the glass onto his button-up, his tux. But he doesn’t care. Especially not as his eyes wander over to Paul Owen, crouched under one of the many tables of food and snacks. 

... _Paul Owen._

_“Paul—?!”_

Paul doesn’t seem to notice Patrick at first, too busy fiddling with something in his hands, a clump of green. At first he looks to be hunched over, and Patrick hopes he's puking, but no, he just seems to be enamored with the object in his grasp. Paul Owen is wearing a tux that is the exact same as Patrick's; he hates that he's able to pull it off _better_.

Bateman calls for him again, “Paul!” 

The table shakes as Paul bumps his head on it, jumping up and jerking back and forth to find the source of the voice. He appears caught off guard, as if in the act of something he shouldn’t have been doing. Then his icy blue eyes land on Patrick and he grins, pulling himself up from under the table and strolling over. Patrick grimaces, that cocky air still surrounded Paul despite being caught hiding under one of the tables. 

“Hey there, Halberstam! Didn’t know you were gonna be here tonight. Uh... _Cecilia!_ How is she?”

Patrick blinks, keeping a firm grip on his glass, wondering for a moment if he could shatter it into pieces with his strength alone. A tight smile forms as he makes an incredible effort to concentrate, battling the several, disembodied voices mocking him, ignoring the visions of mutilated bodies. 

“Ah, Paul, you know Cecilia, she’s...” Patrick fumbles for an answer, wondering then what exactly Paul had been searching for under the table. “She, uh, has the flu.” 

There's a sympathetic expression on Paul’s face. Patrick fantasizes cutting into his mouth with a sharpened candy cane. 

“Aw man, that’s a shame,” Owen sighs. “She’s a _terrific_ girl.” 

As if it couldn’t get any more worse, Paul’s hand claps Patrick’s shoulder, a friendly gesture, one would suppose, but it only serves to spur on Patrick’s bloodlust. The self restraint he has to prevent himself from crushing Paul’s windpipe is remarkable. 

Resting a hand on Bateman's back (what is he _hiding_ ), Paul gestures to the crowd of guests in the other room. “Say, Halberstam, it’s kinda dead here, maybe we could swing by Dorsia? _Amazing_ sea urchin this time of year.” 

Patrick’s heart _soars,_ and for the first time that day he feels his anxieties melt away, replaced by overwhelming euphoria. He could have Paul alone tonight. This is his chance, after _months_ of resentment and fear. 

“Grrr _eat!_ That sounds _great,_ Paul. But first...” 

This time, it's Patrick’s hand that finds Paul’s shoulder. His excitement _blinds_ any other thoughts, and he no longer wonders what exactly Paul is hiding. 

“Let’s swing by my place.”

* * *

Huey Lewis and the News blasts on Patrick’s stereo system (which is a complete set up, CD player, tape deck, amplifier by Sansui, with six-foot Duntech Sovereign 2001 speakers). “Hip to be Square” plays loudly, Patrick dancing effortlessly around his formidable apartment. Paul Owen follows suit, stumbling more so than dancing. It's clear, as they left Evelyn’s, that Paul had indulged in one too many drinks; Patrick can tell just from the way the other speaks and walks with a struggle, slurring his words and not really focusing on their conversation. It would explain why he was under the tables earlier (and obviously, the drug he'd slipped into Paul's drink when they'd arrived at Bateman's apartment certainly doesn't aid in his clumsiness). Patrick doesn’t mind, it only makes his plans for the evening come together a bit more nicely.

They circle the couch, dancing, and Patrick finds that he's genuinely enjoying himself, if only because he knows of the near future. He can already picture his perfectly white walls, doused in red. 

Patrick moonwalks to the stereo, turning down the volume. Paul’s cackling overpowers the music; he's apparently having a good time. Maybe Patrick misjudged him. Huey is a very underappreciated artist, surely someone who recognized that type of talent couldn’t be _that_ awful.

“You like Huey Lewis and the News?” 

“Maybe! They did... _Back to the Future,_ right?” 

Patrick tightens his hand into a fist. 

_“In a sense._ They recorded two songs for the movie, ‘The Power of Love’ and ‘Back in Time,’ which I consider delightful footnotes to what is shaping up to be a _legendary career.”_

Paul nods along, his gaze trailing off and glossing over Patrick’s David Onica painting above the fireplace. He doesn’t make a comment. Patrick bites the inside of his cheek, forcefully swallowing back an insult, and strides into the bathroom. The see-through raincoat — soon to be replaced by one from Burberry, he reminds himself — has already been laid out on the sink counter, the axe propped up against the wall. 

Someone was always going to die tonight. It's Patrick’s Christmas present to himself: a bacchanal/bloodbath. At the nightmare that Evelyn had called a “party,” Patrick had been debating on Luis, Evelyn, or Courtney as possible victims. In the end, however, he knew he couldn’t kill them. They're the essential pieces of _his world._

Paul Owen? He's expendable. 

“...I was taking a piss in the men’s room at the Yale Club, Paul,” Patrick finds himself saying, buttoning up the raincoat, staring vacantly at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, “and I was staring into this thin…web-like crack above the urinal’s handle, and it started me thinking: ‘If I were to, say, somehow miniaturize and disappear into that crack…the odds are good no one would notice I was gone. No one…would…care.’” 

A flash of green shines in his peripheral vision. There's a split second of alarm, his fingers pausing on one of the buttons, before he continues. “Hip to Be Square” plays in the distance, muffled through the bathroom walls, and he lets himself grow _numb_... 

“‘In fact,’ I thought, ‘If they noticed my absence, they might even feel an odd, indeﬁnable sense of...relief.’” 

Patrick wonders if Paul would be missed. His fists clench as he finishes with the coat, staring into the two black holes that are his eyes. 

“That’s when I realized this truth, Paul...Paul?” 

No response. Prick hasn’t even been listening. 

“...the world is better oﬀ with some people gone...our lives are not all interconnected...some people do not need to be here...” 

Spinning on his heel, he grabs the axe and settles it on his shoulder. Entering the living room, he notices that Paul is...holding onto something. Is that what he’d grabbed at the party? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Paul burps, shoving whatever he'd been holding back into his vest.

“I’m drunker than I _thought...”_

“Oh! That’s just the date rape drug I put in your drink.” 

“Oh...that must be why I’m feeling so _melloooow_...haha...” 

Owen plops down on Patrick’s expensive sofa, laying sideways with his feet kicked up on the arm rests. He lazily taps his fingers to the music, completely off-beat. Patrick smiles tightly, shuffling into the room and resting his axe against the wall. _Back to Huey._

“Huey’s been compared to Elvis Costello! But I think Huey has a far more _cynical, bitter_ sense of humor.” 

“Hey Halberstam—!” 

“Yes, Owen?” 

“Why are there copies of the _Style_ section everywhere...you have a dog...? A little _chow_ or something...?” he giggles, kicking his feet and leaning back. Patrick grins wolfishly. It's only a matter of time before he wipes that smug little smile right off of his face (and onto the floor).

“No, Owen!” 

Peering over the back of the sofa, Patrick imagines brain matter leaking from Paul’s ears and nose, dripping all over his expensive tuxedo. 

Paul cocks his head to one side, pointing and laughing. “Is that a _raincoat?”_

“Yes it is!” Bateman rounds the sofa, smoothly sliding over to the stereo, one hand on the volume knob. “Paul...tell me about the Fisher account. How _did_ you come to acquire it?” 

From his shelf, he can see just how out of it Paul is, head rocking back and forth, eyes half-lidded. More than anything, really, Patrick's concerned about how at home the man has made himself at _his_ apartment. Were Patrick not about to cave the man's skull in, he might’ve made a comment. 

“I guess it’s just one of those things...they thought I’d be the best person to, uh, _take it to the next level.”_

Those words are like a punch to Patrick’s gut. “Right! _Of course._ And Dorsia? I’ve just _always_ wondered how you managed to score a reservation to Dorsia!” 

The bastard smirks in his dazed state, leaning in like he's telling a secret. 

“I’m friends with the maître d’.” 

Patrick knows it for a fact then: Paul Owen doesn't deserve to be alive.

 _“Interesting.”_

Turning the song up to a practically deafening volume, Bateman walks back around the couch, picking up his prop for the evening and feeling its weight in his hands. Pure unadulterated joy flows through his body as he holds his axe close to him and gives one last look at his clean carpeting. He walks back in front of Paul, who merely stares at him with a spacey expression. The axe is clear as day in Patrick;s hands, yet Paul didn’t mention it. No one. Ever. Did.

“I’m utterly insane, Paul. I like to dissect girls.” 

A meaningless confession, as Patrick knows that Owen won’t give a shit. He isn’t even surprised when Paul puts his hands up and rolls his eyes. 

“It’s _fine._ I used to hate Iggy Pop too, but now that he’s more commercial, I like him!” 

Owen’s concentration shifts, focusing on picking at a small string hanging off of his shirt sleeve. Patrick sighs wistfully, his smile widening, stretching over his features. 

“We’re _both_ twenty-seven years old. Did you know that?” The grip on the axe tightens. _“Pauuuuuuuul?”_

He's waiting for some sort of reaction, a realization of sorts that maybe who Paul is speaking to isn’t Marcus. That Paul has stumbled into the lion's den, only wanting to play with the animals and unaware of the danger lurking within. There's nothing. Rage cuts into Patrick Bateman like a knife, twisting. 

_It’s hip to be square!_

At a sideways angle, Patrick swings the axe towards the center of Paul Owen’s face, and just like that, the dumb fucking grin is _wiped_ from his face. 

The axe lodges itself in Paul Owen’s mouth, bones cracking, blood spurting out. Somehow still semi-conscious, Paul begins to convulse, hands grabbing feebly at the handle, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Patrick rips the axe out of his head, brain matter and bloody sinew following after it, dripping out in clumps of vinegary liquid. Spasming violently, Paul falls forward, tongue lolling out from the now hollowed out sides of his face, one of his eyeballs hanging from the optic nerve. Patrick growls and swings down towards the center of Owen's skull, bashing his head in. He swings multiple times, each blow more frantic than the last.

 _“TRY GETTING A RESERVATION AT DORSIA NOW YOU FUCKING. STUPID. BASTARD!!!”_

Punctuating each word with a hack at Owen’s head, he keeps swinging and _swinging_ until there is nearly nothing left but a mush of flesh, bones, and blood. The corpse is unrecognizable. A small green tuft of fur sticks out from within the pile; Patrick paid no mind. 

Huey blasts in the background, covering up Patrick’s heavy breathing. He sways to music, slowly beginning to dance along, around Paul, nodding his head to the beat. 

_Merry Christmas, Bateman._

* * *

Patrick dazedly walks out of his apartment, out of the building, leaving behind the mess of flesh and bone, his bloodied murder weapon thrown _somewhere._ It's dark out. Chilly. Only after he’s hailed a cab, sat in the backseat, and stared out the window into the vast darkness for a good ten minutes does he realize he still hasn't removed his raincoat. Broken bits of skull cling to his face, brain matter sliding down along his cheek. The cabbie doesn’t acknowledge Patrick’s state during the drive, nor when they’ve parked, and merely thanks him as if he were any other customer. (Probably also because Patrick blindly shoves a hundred dollar bill in the driver’s hands, pure adrenaline driving him, any rational thoughts jumbled.) 

The first thing Patrick notices as he enters Paul Owen’s apartment with his stolen keys is that it's _better_ than his own. His nails dig into his palm, drawing blood, and he narrowly suppresses the urge to scream and deface the place. No. He has to be smart. 

First, there's the raincoat, stained and ruined with gore. Removing it, Patrick douses the coat in lighter fluid and throws it into Paul’s fireplace, watching with fascination as the flames consume it, the stench of burning plastic (and something akin to cooking meat) filling the apartment quickly. After opening a window and washing his face in Paul’s bathroom — completely white, not a single impurity to be found — Patrick turns his attention to the answering machine in Paul’s bedroom. Where should he send the bastard? The gears in his brain turn, circling through options: Rome, Amsterdam, Phoenix... 

Then it hits him, and he beams like a child on Christmas Day — _London._

He leaves a message on the machine, figuring that his voice is similar enough to Paul’s, no doubt in his mind that the asshole’s girlfriend ( _Meredith_ , he's pretty sure) would think that her _perfect_ boyfriend would be off in England for a couple of weeks. Tremors wrack Patrick’s hands as he pulls out Paul’s bridle leather suitcase from the bedroom closet, stuffing it full of various articles of clothing, toiletries, and accessories. The wide smirk on his lips starts to make his face _ache,_ and he cackles as he exits with the suitcase, his heart hammering. Strange, he always thought he never had a heart. 

The ride back to the American Gardens Building is a blur, and upon stepping into the elevator, Bateman is berated with thoughts such as, _What if someone finds the body? What if they call the cops? What if what if what if?_ He begins to sweat profusely as the automatic doors open, having to remind himself of what's going to come out of this, reminding himself that Paul Owen is finally _dead_ and _gone._ The threat has been dealt with. 

Patrick sets the suitcase on the floor of his apartment as he steps past the threshold, closing and locking the door behind him (had he left it open?). He takes three steps forward, expecting to see the horrific and gory display he’d left behind. What he sees instead makes the blood drain from his face. 

The body is _gone._

Sweat prickles at the back of his neck. He spins around and unlocks his apartment door, stepping outside and taking a deep breath, closing the door behind him. It couldn’t be gone. The adrenaline is just making him lethargic. He _killed_ Paul Owen. He _knows_ he did. The body _is_ on his living room floor. He stands in the hallway for another minute or so, trying to calm his nerves. 

He's going to open the door, and that little prick's going to be waiting for him. Any other scenario would be incorrect and _absurd._

Drawing in a deep breath, Patrick reaches for the doorknob with trembling fingers, hesitantly turning the handle. The apartment door creaks open, the room eerily quiet. Patrick creeps through the doorway once more, taking a few steps into his hallway and peering into the living room. 

_It's gone._

Paul Owen is nowhere to be found. 

Patrick _runs_ into the room, head snapping back and forth as he searches for any indication of the possibly dissolving body already. There's still blood caked all over the _Style_ sections on the floor, blood on the sofa. Patrick _knows_ he burned a bloody raincoat at Paul Owen’s apartment. He definitely killed someone. That someone should have been Paul Owen. Paul Owen should be dissolving in a bathtub in Hell’s Kitchen. 

_Maybe he is._

Suddenly, the bloody footprints leading to the exit aren’t as suspicious as he first thought. They could have been anyone’s. They _couldn’t_ have been Paul Owen’s lifeless corpse, getting up and deciding he’d had enough to drink for the night, pressing the elevator buttons, and then standing on the street hailing for a cab. It's a repulsive thought, really. It couldn’t happen. 

Patrick must have already gotten rid of the body. He just happened to forget. 

Laughter erupts within the apartment, uncontrollable cackling wracking Patrick’s body, and at some point he's afraid it isn’t his own voice he's hearing. With a trash bag in hand, he tears all of the taped down newspapers from his carpet, throwing all of it into the bag, careful not to let any leftover chunks of flesh fall from the side. Patrick laughs. He laughs until he cries, and by then he's hunched over his sink, fumbling for medication, anything to drown out all of his thoughts so he can sleep peacefully. Shards of bone and cartilage hang from strands of his hair. Patrick looks past them, into his own reflection. The body he's currently inhabiting. 

The body doesn’t stare back. 

...Huey Lewis and the News didn’t make it big on the national music scene at the beginning of the decade. They had just burst out of San Francisco with their self-titled rock-pop album released by Chrysalis, though they didn’t come into their own, commercially or artistically, until their 1983 smash, _Sports._ They seemed a little too willing to cash in on the late seventies/early eighties taste for New Wave, and the album — though it was still a smashing debut — seems a little too stark, too punk. Examples of this being the drumming on the first single, “Some of My Lies Are True (Sooner or Later),” and the fake handclaps on “Don’t Make Me Do It” as well as the organ on “Taking a Walk.” Even though it was a...

Patrick swears to fucking Christ as he pulls on Ralph Lauren sweats that Paul Owen is staring at him in the reflection of the metal handles on his nightstand. His back is damp with sweat, his jaw hurts from laughing. He needs another Xanax. He recalls that he has lunch scheduled at Nell's with Reed Thompson the next day, 2:00 PM. 

This is Patrick’s last thought as he pulls his futon covers over himself, gently succumbing to sleep.


	2. they’ll never guess what’s underneath.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul Owen returns to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY this is @aspiringaspie!! thank you so much for the comments aaaaaa me and @LittleDancingRat are SO excited for this one!!!!!!
> 
> (tw this chapter: gore, hallucinations, panic attacks)
> 
> [edited 8/12/20: present tense, more details, formatting]

_Hurts. Hurts. Is this pain? Is this what pain is like? Ow ow ow ow. Get up get up. Oh, so much crackling. So many little human bones, all broken, destroyed. Look at all this blood, all the pieces of flesh and brain, it’s like a painting. Get up get up you useless human. It hurts but the pain is good, yes yes the pain feels so good. That’s it, on your feet. Feel your skull reshaping, yes yes, Paulsy!!!!_

_One of your eyes is back. Our eye. We can see again, so keep moving, don’t worry our flesh is coming back, that’s it. Open the door, don’t worry, get to the elevator. No one will notice the blood, no one ever has before! Our one knee is completely shattered, I know, but we’ll just keep dragging it along, drag it past the elevator doors._

_Squish squish. Our brain is rebuilding, it’s still exposed from our skull, like someone peeked inside their Christmas present early! Isn’t that funny! We’re laughing, aren’t we!! Laughing as we drip green and red everywhere, like a decoration for the holidays. So colorful, right, Paulsy?!? Through the spinning doors now, outside, down the alley, no one will see us. Back to the apartment, hurry, we need to get home, yes that’s it, we’re together, my little vessel, yes yes..._

Paul Owen breathes in sharply, his eyes snapping open, his heart beating like a jackhammer. 

Naked and drenched in sweat, he bolts upright in his bed, a hand flying to his chest instinctively. Not a moment later, a sharp agony, worse than any headache or migraine he’d ever had, overcomes him, splitting his head in two. Paul squeezes his eyes shut, shielding himself from the rays of morning sunlight that shine through his windows. 

He cradles his head in his hands, collapsing back against the mattress, curling against his pillows. How much had he had to _drink_ last night? He remembers arriving at Evelyn Williams’s party, meeting Marcus Halberstam, and...something else. As his eyes slit open, the simple task a struggle that worsens the pain, he desperately tries to remember the events of the night before. The alcohol, Huey Lewis and the News, something with Iggy Pop... 

_The Tickle-Me-Wiggly._

He stops in the doorway of his bathroom, leaning against the doorframe, resting his head against it for a moment. The toy. He sees it so clearly now. The ugly little green thing that someone had thrown under one of the tables. He’d meant to grab it as a joke, or maybe he’d donate it to charity or whatever. Kids and parents had been going crazy over the thing all year, and not to mention the chaos of Black Friday. Maybe he'd wanted to tease Meredith with it? Like she would’ve even given a shit. He's missing something. 

“Fuck...” 

The migraine is _torture._ Stumbling to the sink, he turns on the faucet and splashes cold water on his face. As expected, it does little to soothe the pain, and so he lifts his head, intending to open the mirror cabinet where he keeps his painkillers. 

Until he sees his reflection. Gasping, he reels away from the mirror. _Surely_ that can’t be him. _How_ could it be? Tentatively, he lifts his fingers to his face. 

A large cut runs from the left side of his hairline, along his temple, stopping near the bottom of his ear. Pink lines run across his cheeks, a large scar that splits his face in half. The effect is not unlike a Cheshire grin; it's like someone had cut a smile into him. Specks of dried blood are caked all around it. He notices another mark that runs along his shoulder as well, though it's much smaller.

Pain shoots through his temples once more, causing him to hunch over the sink basin, his gut feeling queasy. 

“Fucking Christ, I must’ve taken a bad dive last night….” 

Last night. _Last night._ What the fuck happened last night? He had...dinner. Where, though? It couldn’t have been Dorsia, he knows that much. Or did he even make it to dinner... _what day is it?_ Christmas was...yesterday. Evelyn Williams’s Christmas party, he was there last night. He ran into Marcus Halberstam. Maybe. God, the headache is fucking awful. All he can remember is finding that stupid green doll. 

His thoughts are interrupted, vomit fighting its way up and burning his throat. Then it's in the sink. Once he's sure that nothing else is coming up, he lifts his head — his reflection stares back at him, pale and shaky — and swings open his medicine cabinet, fumbling for an Advil. Pills, hair products, and facial cleansers all topple out, caps popping open and gel spilling everywhere. Somehow Paul finds it in himself not to care. The Advil lay sideways next to his toothbrush; he grabs one of the tablets that had fallen out, popping it in his mouth and swallowing it dry. The mess is one thing. What he _does_ care about is the nasty cut he now adorns. There has to be makeup lying around somewhere. There's no possible way he can show up to work with that.

Work. _Shit_ what time is it? Paul stumbles back into his room, vision cloudy; he stands still and focuses, trying to see the time on his nightstand. The clock reads 10:00 am. He was late. Fuck, he's _so_ late. 

Running to the closet, he shuffled through his suits, flipping vests aside and searching for something he hadn’t already worn that week. Then a pause. There are a lot of empty hangers. Like...a lot. He's missing tons of clothes. _What did he do last night?_ Paul starts to panic now as he grabs a suit off the rack, stark grey Valentino Couture (a very nice suit), and rushes back into his bedroom. Come to think of it...there's no toilet paper in the bathroom, and on top of that, he's missing his Theodent dental gel that had been resting atop his bath towel set. 

Then his answering machine goes off. The sound makes his head ache; he clenches his eyes shut, waiting for it to stop. When whoever is calling finally stops, his answering machine pipes up.

_“Hi. This is Paul Owen. I’m sorry I’m not here to take your call, but I’m in London for the next two weeks taking the Fisher account to the next level!”_

When did he leave that? God, how drunk was he last night? That's _definitely_ his voice, no doubt about it. Why _London?_

Paul needs to get to work — who _knows_ how many clients have already called today to be greeted with that. Sifting through drawers to find a collared shirt to wear, he notices the lack of clothes in them as well. He's truly starting to come to the conclusion that someone had stolen his shit; the other possibility is that Paul, in his drunken haze, had decided to pack for a vacation. He could only pray that his clothes are stashed away somewhere in his apartment and not in the back of some cabbie’s car halfway across the state. 

Work, work _work._ He needs to get to work, _now._ He would worry about everything later.

He pulls on a Saint Laurent collared shirt with Albert Thurston suspender straps to hold up the Valentino trousers matching his suit. Not really paying attention, he snags a yellow Armani tie and is on his way. By the time he's hailed a cab, Montblanc briefcase in hand (the Ralph Lauren one is fucking _missing),_ does he realize that the bloodied gash along his forehead and scars along his face are still very prominent, standing out for all to see. 

_Shit._

* * *

_BLUE FEVER: THE NEW DANCING PLAGUE?_

_Reports are flooding in over the last two weeks of what health professionals are calling “blue fever.” This sudden sickness seems to have spread rapidly across the country, starting in the east and making its way over the west. Conspiracists say that this disease is tied to the meteor that had landed in Michigan, as it began to spread not long after, but this theory has been stated as false on multiple occasions. Those who fall victim to the “blue fever” have been said to be prone to uncontrollable coughing fits. Many may start vomiting an unknown blue substance. Some have said that they’ll start singing and dancing before turning violent on other people. No one knows for sure how this sickness began spreading, but many have turned to America’s worst enemy as the cause: drugs._

“Ha,” Patrick Bateman barks aloud, folding his copy of today’s _Post_ , “always with the fuckin’ drugs.”

The paper is tossed onto his desk, his legs propped up on it, one crossed over the other. It's a _remarkably_ good day for him so far. Last night, though it had at one point become troublesome, was a victory for Bateman. Paul Owen is dead. Within the next few weeks, no one will even think to check up as to whether the man is in London or not. Patrick wouldn’t be missed, so why would Paul? All the bastard had over him is a _better_ business card and a free for all into Dorsia. Asshole couldn’t very well score a reservation there anymore. Patrick sips his glass of Perrier as he lazily scrolls through his computer terminal. His headphones are clamped to his head tightly, “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads played at full volume through his Sony Walkman, and he chuckles at the irony. 

The two Halcion he’d taken today had calmed his anxiety considerably, and the pleasant memories of last night come flooding back to him. Of Paul’s dazed expression, the way his skull caved in when Patrick lodged the axe into his face, the spurting of blood and chunks of flesh, Huey Lewis and the News blasting through his stereo. It's purely euphoric as he replays in his head the exact moment he’d hacked into Owen’s skull, when he _finally_ shut him up. Another sip from his glass, and Patrick’s glance darts from the terminal before him to Paul Owen, who is rushing down the hall. Patrick nods towards him. 

And then promptly spits up a mouthful of water. 

Instantly, Patrick is on his feet and out of his office, standing in the doorway with a bewildered expression, panting. He's just seeing things. No way. No _fucking_ way did he just see Paul Owen, alive and well, arriving late to work. There's no way in fucking hell. Faintly, Patrick hears his secretary, Jean, trying to get his attention, but he pays no mind, hurriedly making his way to where he knows Owen's office is. Just a peek. That's all he needs. Just a peek. _Confirmation_. 

His head pops into the window of the office, and there — he — _is_. Paul Owen, visibly exhausted but _alive,_ setting his suit on his coathanger, mumbling something Patrick can’t make out. For a moment, he begins to think the whole night had been a mere fabrication, that _no one_ had died from his hands that Christmas night, but then Paul faces the door and Patrick audibly gasps. The scar. The _gash._

Patrick wrenches himself away from the scene, shaken. Paul Owen is alive. He's alive. _He's alive and had somehow survived a fucking axe to the head._ That, or the injury is purely coincidental, which is unlikely since Patrick _recognizes_ the mark on Paul’s face, he _knows_ where he’d hit him. Is he a ghost? What is he? How is he _alive?????_

Before his brain can come up with all the evidence to Paul being an immortal being, a god of sorts, the man himself appears in the open doorway of his office — Patrick had been caught. Paul survived and now he's here to bring Patrick’s reckoning. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A shattered skull for a shattered skull. Bateman can only stare in horror, throat going dry as Paul makes eye contact with him, eyes widening in... _concern?_

“Halberstam?” Owen pipes up. Patrick feels sick, having forgotten that his true identity means _nothing_ to Paul. “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time, I’m sure you among _many_ other people have been trying to reach me, it's been a rough morning so far.” 

Owen gives a mirthless chuckle. Patrick can only stare at him. The man's tainted flesh sticks out like a sore thumb; the cut is huge and at the _exact point_ Patrick’s axe had met his skull, as well as the scar across his mouth, his cheeks. Satisfaction tugs at Patrick's heart at the prospect that he’d ruined the firm’s golden boy, but Paul should not be alive. _He shouldn’t._ Paul Owen _died_ last night. 

Quickly composing himself after the awkward silence — Paul had begun to shrink down, _very_ aware of the attention paid to his injuries he’d sustained — Patrick throws on a tight smile. “I’m _sure_ it has been. _Quite_ the party last night, wasn’t it?” 

He's sure his voice sounds strangled; sweat pours from his brow. Yet Paul doesn’t notice, too worried of his own appearance, constantly combing his hair back and doing everything in his power to be subtle about breaking the direct line of sight between Patrick and the marks on his skin, the very apparent wound on his forehead. The wound _Patrick_ had inflicted. 

“Oh...yeah!” Paul’s attempt at a joke to lighten the situation. Patrick can’t even find it in him to fake laughter. _“Great_ party last night, wish I could remember it!” 

Interesting. Chronic alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, dementia. At the very _least_ Patrick could have inflicted a concussion, but this makes things _interesting._ If Paul Owen doesn’t remember the night, then surely he doesn’t remember Patrick’s apartment? Perhaps being blunt is the best option.

“You’re bleeding... _were bleeding..._ what’s with the severe head trauma Paul? Looks like somebody cleaved your skull in two,” Patrick observes, and when he speaks again, his voice lowers to a murmur. “Richard Ramirez did that, used a machete. 1984, snuck into a sleeping couples’ homes, hacked them to bits.” 

Paul grows very uncomfortable at that, though Patrick's unsure if it's because of the scar or the fun, interesting fact. “Oh you know…. Must’ve taken a spill last night! You know how that goes, Marcus.” 

The first few notes of “Hip to be Square” begin playing from Patrick’s Walkman. Patrick fumbled, quickly ripping off the headphones from around his neck. He thinks that he cracked one of the speakers by how hard his hand had clenched it, but he's too worried about how fast his heart is beating to care, wrapping against the inside of his ribcage. 

Then Paul says something that makes Patrick’s breathing halt, his pulse pause (though he's sure he doesn’t have one): “Didn’t I go to dinner with you last night? Sorry, it’s all a little bit hazy but...I just _swear_ that I went to Barcadia or stopped by Tunnel...” 

Owen’s eyes are begging for an answer; Bateman’s are vacant, picturing the headless corpse of a woman hanging from the coat rack behind Owen’s shoulder. 

“No,” Patrick shakes his head. _“No._ It must have been someone else.” A lump begins to form in Bateman’s throat, laboring his speech. “I think I saw you walk out with...Clint Eastwood.” 

Paul blinks, considering what Patrick had said. “Oh...yeah that’s...that’s probably right...” 

The half-hearted reassurance is pitiful, as if Paul were desperate to accept any answer given to him, despite how ridiculous it might be. Patrick considers telling him he sang drunk karaoke in front of a crowd, or spilled red wine on Ivana Trump’s white, Betsy Johnson gown. But, no. Instead, they stand in silence.

“...that’s a nice Valentino Couture jacket, great taste,” Patrick finally says, shuffling awkwardly. His voice had broken Paul out of his hazy stupor, and he mutters a thanks. 

There's no doubt that by then Patrick’s Walkman has become nothing but snapped plastic and screws in his hand. 

“Well. I better be off, I think I have some videotapes I need to return.”

Turning around, Patrick makes his exit, Paul looking after him. As soon as he's out of Paul’s sight, Patrick makes a beeline for his office, the same mantra repeating over and _over_ in his head, the same bits of evidence that proved that he was hallucinating all of this. Paul Owen is _dead._ Patrick dissolved the body in Hell’s Kitchen. The bloody raincoat was burned at Paul’s apartment. A voicemail was left on Paul’s answering machine. _Surely he’d gone over there?_

Paul Owen is dead. He's _dead._ Patrick washed Paul’s _fucking brain_ out of his hair this morning. He's dead. He's dead. _He's dead._

“Patrick?” 

A soft voice stops him in his tracks. He doesn’t notice the tremors wracking his body, nor the fact that he’d dropped the mess that used to be his Walkman at some point, as it's no longer in his hands. He puts on a forced smile. “Jean, Jean _Jean Jean Jean!”_

His secretary’s eyes light up as he repeats her name. They’d known each other for a decent amount of time, as she’d been working in Pierce & Pierce for a few years now. As such, she’d begun to pick up on the signs from her boss that something wasn’t right. She's smart, _observant._ While these traits are admirable in other situations, that couldn’t be further from the case now. 

“Patrick, are you alright?” she asks as Patrick just stands there, in front of his desk, rocking on his heels. The image of Paul Owen’s dismembered corpse is fresh in his mind, clear as day — _how the fuck is he in one piece????_

“Jean, I...” He wipes the back of his hand along his forehead, brushing aside the hair that had been matted to his skin with sweat. “Can you...what are my plans today?” 

He shoves his shaking hands in his silken trouser pockets, watching as Jean scans over the paper full of notes on her clipboard. Being around her is a comfort, a reassurance, but it isn’t enough. Patrick already finds his chest constricting around his lungs, his vision spotty as he struggles to breathe. 

“Meeting at 1:00 PM with Reed Robinson,” his secretary who is in love with him goes on, voice faint, down the far end of a tunnel, “then at 3:00, lunch at Harry’s—” 

“Cancel it,” Patrick cuts her off, and she's silent in an instant, mouth hanging open for a moment before closing. He notices that she’s applied lipstick today, a deep shade of red. Red. _Blood._ “Cancel everything.” 

Jean hesitates, before slipping her pen out from the clipboard and writing something down. That taken care of, Patrick grabs his briefcase (which is _better_ than Paul Owen’s) and makes to leave, his breathing sounding more like wheezing now.

 _“Patrick.”_ His hand stops on the doorknob as Jean speaks up sweetly; he nearly chokes on air. “Where are you going? What should I tell—...?” 

“Home,” he snaps, perhaps too rudely, but he's going to throw up right then and there if he doesn’t _leave the goddamn building._ “I’m going home early, Jean, I don’t feel good. Just...tell them...no.” 

He doesn’t spare a glance behind him to gauge Jean’s reaction, stepping out of his office, into the hallway and— 

“Halberstam—!” 

The briefcase nearly flies out of Patrick’s grasp. Snapping his head around, he sets his eyes on Paul _again._ The wound still stands out on his forehead, as do those fucking scars on his face, the scars that _mark_ where the axe had sliced into him so _cleanly._

“Can’t talk,” Patrick gasps, the walls caving in on him as he runs as fast as his legs can take him, away from Paul, away, _away._ “Need to...return some videotapes—!” 

He needs to sleep. He needs a Xanax. He needs it to all make _sense._

* * *

Paul Owen stares after the retreating form of (the man who he believes is) Marcus Halberstam, the man’s secretary peeking out of his office with the same concerned stare. Sure, Paul is behind on work due to his lateness, but he _needs_ to talk to Halberstam. Just his luck, then, that he’d leave. He seemed rattled, scared even. Damn.

Paul should’ve complained about having work on holidays. Nothing ever got done the next day and the people who _did_ show were sporting dreadful hangovers. Himself included.

His own migraine has barely lightened up yet, the Advil not doing a great job, although he does feel better after spitting up his dinner from last night. The mystery dinner, the one he _still_ cannot place the location of, nor the occupants. For some reason, he just can’t believe the man he’d dined with was Clint Eastwood. But Paul has to move past it. Life is too fast paced, and if he could remember where he was just a few days ago, then he would have already been left behind. 

“Owen! Jesus buddy, a little late for work today?” 

Paul startles. Craig McDermott (or is it Nigel Morrison?) comes up behind him, slapping Paul on the back in a friendly gesture, making his nausea return, head spinning like a roller coaster. Glancing over his shoulder, Owen notes that he's wearing a Subury Navy Windowpane Ralph Lauren coat, complete with Ralph Lauren trousers and a Giorgio Armani silk tie. He's decently dressed. McDermott is within Patrick Bateman’s friend group, however, so Paul usually doesn’t associate with him. Most of the time, their conversations consisted of constant one upmanship (but that's the same with everyone, isn’t it?).

“Rough night, Evelyn’s Christmas party,” McDermott laughs. “You were there?”

Paul chuckles weakly. “Yeah of course, you know I wouldn’t miss a—!”

Turning around he sees McDermott’s expression falter, confusion and damn near amusement crossing his features. Then Paul remembers. 

_The scars._

_“Fucking hell,_ what happened to you?”

Paul shrinks back, struggling for words. His face grows hot and all at once the pain from his forehead strikes again, pain flaring up like lightning. 

“Oh, you know...” The ache in his head worsens. He winces. “I got black out drunk last night! Haha...”

McDermott is in his face, finger pointing at the disfigurements. Paul fears that people are starting to look.

“That’s a nasty dent, Paul,” McDermott scoffs, obviously amused. “What, did you get mugged on your way home last night?”

Paul can’t breathe, the tightness in his chest overbearing. He fears he's having a panic attack. 

McDermott pokes at the wound, then at the scar on his cheek. Agony rattles from within Paul’s skull. The other doesn’t seem to care, though, as he continues to hurl insults at him. Paul feels frozen in time; people are _definitely_ starting to look now. He can feel it. All of their eyes boring into him. Everyone is looking at his impurities. Paul can hear himself stuttering out protests, trying to defend himself.

“Christ, you look like a fucking baseball.” McDermott crosses his arms over his chest. “It looks infected— oh, _it is definitely infected._ ”

“I...I took a spill last night!” Owen blurts out, near hysterics. “Must have fallen...on the sidewalk! I got drunk I don’t remember, but m-my head fucking _hurts.”_

Something in the way McDermott crowds his space, leaving him no room to breathe, sets off a primal fear in Paul. He can’t place it, but all he wants to do is hide away in his office. The walls are closing in on him, and McDermott _keeps poking_ at his head and mumbling words that are nearly incoherent to Paul by this point; wads of cotton had been pressed inside his ears, muffled everything. 

McDermott jabs at the scar one last time.

_Touch us one more time and we’ll bite off both of your fucking hands, you rotten piece of yuppie scum._

Paul freezes.

_Where the fuck did that come from?_

Sweat begins forming on his brow. His teeth are _bared._ Had he actually been considering taking a chunk out of Craig’s hand? McDermott's unaware of this fact, talking, talking, _insulting._ Paul feels his stomach turn. Then, acid begins to bubble up and he can’t remain a moment longer. Shoving McDermott aside, Paul sprints off. 

Running past his secretary and ignoring her worrisome comments, Paul hurls himself into his office and slams the door shut, shakily shutting all the blinds. Once he's sure nobody can see in through the windows, he crawls into his rolling chair, pulling his knees up and staring at his Keith Haring painting on the adjacent wall. His heart is nearly thumping out of his chest.

What the fuck was that. _What the fuck was that._

His head hurts. Correction: _everything_ hurts. He can’t go the rest of his day like this. They’d understand if he sleeps it off, right? If he sleeps, he'll remain calmer, and he won’t hear voices that aren’t there. Yeah. Sleep.

When he feels he can breathe evenly again, Paul leans back against his chair, kicking his legs up against the desk. He must've been more tired than he thought, for within seconds he succumbs to sleep, his body falling limp, the pain forgotten. As his consciousness slips away, he thinks he heard a familiar tune, one he's sure he'd heard a lifetime ago...

_He’s a wiggly snig and a sniggly wiggly...a friendy-wend that makes you giggly..._


	3. i can feel it coming in the air tonight.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the decade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AGGGGHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR UR COMMENTS GUYS!!!! it means the world to us, and we're very very VERY excited for this fic!!!!!!!
> 
> tw for this chapter: emetophobia, drugs
> 
> [edited 8/13/20: present tense, formatting, more details]

Days pass by. It's been nearly an entire week of avoiding Paul Owen, and Patrick can feel his mind slowly slipping away, piece by piece. Patrick’s refused to listen to Huey Lewis and the News in that timeframe, the artist’s discography only reminding him of unfinished deeds, cleaved skulls, and shattered bones. While normally these thoughts soothe him, knowing that they’d proved to be ineffective in killing the only threat in his life just made him uncomfortable.

Today is New Year’s Eve, the holiday everyone dreads. Its only purpose serves to remind the masses that time had passed, and nobody likes to think of the inevitable concept known as _time_ ; it‘s a truly sadistic holiday. He thinks, I’m twenty-seven years old, living in New York City at the end of a century; next year, _I’ll be twenty-eight._

He’d made plans to go out with Craig McDermott, David Van Patten, Luis Carruthers, and Marcus Halberstam to Tunnel for the night. Paul Owen was invited (not by Patrick), but he never showed and instead, Van Patten mistook Christopher Armstrong as Owen upon getting out of the cab out front of the club. He‘d been brought inside with their group. The music, currently “Sussudio” by Phil Collins, is so damn loud, ringing throughout Tunnel. At some point in the night, Patrick tried to grab a drink from the little hardbody working behind the bar, but when she turned around to take his order, there were black holes where her eyes should’ve been, blood leaking all the way down her chest. He vaguely remembers screaming at her, threatening to bash her head into the cash register until her skin peeled off and brain matter was dripping onto the floor, but he finds himself now at a table, sipping on a J&B on the rocks, so it must have all worked out in the end.

McDermott is arguing with him about wearing a Giorgio Armani vest with a Saint Laurent blazer, but Patrick isn’t paying attention, too busy thinking about the waitress who‘d taken their orders thirty minutes ago, and how it would feel to jam broken glass into her eye socket. From across the room, standing next to (who he thinks is) Creed Robinson, Timothy Price is laughing, a genuine grin on his face as he throws back a shot. But no. He’s mistaken Nigel Morrison for Tim Price. And all at once the sudden surge of excitement leaves him feeling cold and numb.

“Bateman!”

Patrick snaps his head to attention. McDermott waves his hand in front of him, everyone else at the table seemingly waiting on Patrick for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard. Luis meets his eyes with a concerned expression, but Patrick scowls at him, looking away.

“No, _never_ wear an Armani vest with a Laurent blazer, the vest is meant to be worn with a looser fitting suit.” Patrick shakily takes a sip from his drink. “Otherwise the Laurent will get wrinkled by the thicker padding on the seams of the vest.”

They all turn to each other, their voices growing in volume to speak over the loud music, breaking out into an argument yet again. Bateman squeezes his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Christ, I need to do a line.”

This catches McDermott’s attention, as he suddenly stands up to accompany him. “Gee, Bateman, _Batester,_ Why didn’t ya say so earlier?”

McDermott chortles, loud enough to overpower the music. Patrick bites back an insult, merely due to the fact that he needs to get high _now_ and he quite honestly relies on McDermott to score him decent cocaine. (That line of work had once been reserved for Timothy Price, but, well...)

Downing the contents of his glass, Patrick observes as McDermott beckons him, and seeing no reason to not join him, soon finds himself at his acquaintance’s side. As per usual, the two make their way to the men’s restroom — thankfully, the line isn’t too long, as Patrick had started to see himself _literally_ cutting through them with a chainsaw that he’d been eyeing at the hardware store for weeks now — both squeezing into one of the stalls. Ever the dependable one (most of the time), McDermott had come prepared, pulling a small plastic bag out from his jacket pocket.

“A gram,” McDermott says as if he’s gloating, kneeling by the toilet seat, carefully pouring the powdery drug onto the porcelain. Patrick’s hands shake so badly that he manages to drop his wallet when reaching inside his suit for it, his American Express card flying out onto the tiled, grimy floor.

“1999” by Prince blasts from within the club, drowned out by the restroom walls; McDermott scoffs. “Eager, Bateman?”

“Shut the _fuck_ up, McDermott,” Bateman snaps, scrambling for the card. The other merely shrugs.

Patrick pants as he inelegantly cuts into the drug with the credit card, his heartbeat painful from within his chest. After nearly dropping his AmEx a second time (this time in the toilet), Patrick swears and throws it to the floor, the paper money already rolled between his fingers.

His mouth grows dry as he stares down for a moment, transfixed and thinking, _thinking_ of the end of the world, that he’s resourceful and a valuable asset, of Paul Owen’s walking corpse, and he thinks he must be staring _too long_ because then McDermott jabs at him, rubbing at his nose, “You gonna stare at it all night, Bateman?”

Air expels from Patrick’s chest in a deep sigh. Glaring at McDermott, who stands over him, Patrick proceeds to lift the bill to his nose and lean in. Briefly, he notices small specks of blue in the cocaine. It doesn’t matter. A split second passes in which the words “dancing plague” flashes in his vision. He snorts the line. Immediately after, Bateman is on his feet. Springing up and sniffing sharply as to not lose any bit of the powder, he grunts and paces inside the stall.

“Fuck! It’s terrible; it’s fucking _candy!”_ His nose begins burning and with reluctance he admits that the powder is also a bit sour. “Your dealer _fucked_ you over again, McDermott. Tell Ricardo if he fucks up again, I’m gonna saw his dick off and use it to snort whatever coke he has left on his _fucking_ corpse!”

“Whoa, Bateman. Low point in the night, much?” McDermott mimics his actions, crouching over the toilet seat, rolling up his own money.

As Patrick continues to rant about the different ways he‘s going to butcher McDermott’s dealer, someone in the next stall over yells at him to “shut the fuck up,” and suddenly he‘s pulling up a leg to hop over the stall door and bash the guy’s fucking skull in. Craig quickly pulls him down, diffusing the situation and pointing over the stall at the asshole (from what Patrick can see, he looks like a metalhead druggie, long hair curtaining his face). Then Patrick takes note of the line of coke still sitting on the toilet seat, untouched.

“What’s the issue, Craig?” Patrick asks. McDermott turns around, fixing his suit and groaning.

“Well first off, I almost just beat the shit out of the bong rat over there—”

The metalhead yells back a “fuck you,” and then Patrick is the one pulling Craig away from hopping over the stall. Impatient, Bateman grits out, “If you’re not going to do it then I will. Christ it’s not great, but I won’t waste it.”

McDermott shrugs, gesturing to the toilet seat. “Be my guest. There’s fuckin’ Draino or something in it, I’m not touching it.”

Bateman knows that he‘s referencing the blue chunks in it, but once again: he doesn’t exactly care. It‘s New Year’s Eve. The end of a century. Everything will only go downhill from here and he needs something to boost him through the rest of the night without having a breakdown. McDermott watches him snort the rest of his stash, cringing. Patrick coughs, hacking for a moment, and then Craig’s pulling him to his feet, dragging him out of the men’s room.

Back in the club, Patrick starts to come to the realization that something is off. He feels lighter on his feet, the music playing on the loudspeakers becoming more prominent, the mass of swaying bodies in the center of the club ever more alluring.

Familiar voices bring him out of his catatonic state then; he’s back at the table with the guys (when did he sit down?) who seem to be arguing about wearing loafers with Calvin Klein socks, which they also stress is inappropriate to wear as part of a dinner outfit.

Luis taps Patrick on the shoulder (he‘d been sitting opposite of Patrick when they first arrived, and somehow he ended up right next to him), concern sweeping his features as he examines the other’s face. “Patrick, are you alright? You’re sweating.”

Patrick pictures ripping off his glasses, snapping off the hinges and forcefully shoving them in both of his eyes.

“Don’t touch me, Luis,” Bateman grounds out, clenching his teeth and staring back at Van Patten, trying to listen to his _interesting_ opinion on mineral water. Patrick almost throws his glass of Stoli on the rocks across the table when he catches sight of Paul Owen sitting beside McDermott, but no, it‘s Christopher Armstrong, and then Patrick‘s less disappointed in Van Patten for making the mistake earlier because he _does_ look very similar to Owen. Owen, who should be dissolving in a bathtub.

It could’ve been minutes, hours, or even _days_ that Patrick spent at Tunnel, swaying side to side and flirting with hardbodies; he isn’t sure exactly when he’d gotten up and left his group, but he’s been on his own since. For the first time, he isn’t uncomfortable being lost in the crowd. He’s been dragged into multiple groups by now, talking and dancing with them for hours, being mistaken for various different people. Patrick wonders if his own group had mistaken someone else for him, hopped in a limo, and went somewhere else for dinner. It doesn’t matter though. He’s already been confused for Paul Denton, Yates Whitaker, Marcus Halberstam (that one in particular still enrages him), and Reed Robinson, all of whom he’s seen in the club at some point that night.

“You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by Dead or Alive thunders in the club while Patrick happily discusses his fantasies of torture and murder (particularly involving a power drill) to a group of guys, none of which he can name (though he had heard the blond one call the taller one by Greg Smith, although “Greg” had looked extremely confused, and it was at that point that Patrick had assumed none of them knew each other and were all from different parties). The guys all laugh and then started discussing hairstylists.

The drumbeats in the song become positively enticing, and Bateman can feel himself unconsciously excusing himself from the group, some unseen force _driving_ him to the middle of the dance floor. Warm bodies surround his form as he starts dancing and swaying to the music. He doesn’t understand what‘s come over him, but he‘s moving more gracefully than before, dance moves coming to him in bursts of energy. It‘s as if a choreographer is on the sidelines, telling him exactly what to do, and he‘s just _doing_ it, a sense of calm, almost serenity flowing from him. People have joined him now. He’s pretty sure he spots McDermott laughing at him from a table across the room, but it might also be Reed Robinson, so he doesn’t make a fuss.

Then he bumps into Paul Owen on the dance floor and everything goes black, his hands wrapping around his neck, squeezing. Paul struggles, grabbing at Patrick’s wrists, trying to pry his fingers off, but Patrick has an iron grip on him. The life begins to stray from his eyes, rolling into the back of his head while he sputters for air—

And then he realizes that he’s mistaken David Van Patten for Paul Owen. Bateman isn’t sure how he’s made this mistake.

David morphs into himself then, nothing like Paul, but Patrick swears that there had been a scar running from his hairline and through his eyebrow, a smile carved into his face. He leans in to inspect this — the scars aren’t there.

Van Patten laughs, completely wasted, nearly falling over as Patrick releases his hold on the man’s throat; David hacks and coughs for about three minutes as Patrick watches, petrified. Then David leans up and wrapped an arm around Bateman’s shoulders, spewing out some bullshit about talking to Ivana Trump at the VIP lounge. He falls to the floor a second later. Patrick shakes his head and sprints towards the exit, ignoring calls from separate groups, all different names, not one of them being Patrick Bateman.

He is Patrick Bateman. Patrick Bateman. Patrick. Bateman.

* * *

_“...ir??? Sir, open the door, please, we’re asking you to leave—!!!”_

All at once, an _overwhelming_ nausea. Hunched over the toilet, the stomach churns, fire burns the throat. A loud groan escapes as the body is purged of whatever it had consumed, the vomit thankfully landing in the bowl and nowhere else. It‘s never ending, sickness coming in wave after wave after wave. Hands grip porcelain, trembling violently. Tears stream down the face, snot and blood dripping from both nostrils. What seems like hours pass, and it finally stops.

Flushing the toilet, Paul Owen collapses to the floor, catching his breath. He blinks. This isn’t his bathroom.

Where is he?

The last thing he can remember is arriving home from work after a long day. His migraine had worsened to a blinding pain, and he’d worriedly examined his injury in the mirror. After Christmas, he’s been keeping a close eye on it, but out of what he supposes is embarrassment, doesn’t want to get medical help. Not yet. The ibuprofen had stopped working at one point, and as such, he’s now turned to Xanax and painkillers to dull the pain. The pain is one thing, of course — the way the gash is healing was _another._ He’s discovered that, rather than closing, it keeps _opening up._ It appears more inflamed now, and often starts bleeding (as well as that awful mockery of a grin on his face turning a _repulsive_ shade of green) during meetings or while dining with a client, both to which he's had to hastily excuse himself from.

This is the first time it's oozed a _green substance._

A thought had crossed his mind at the time, that he really, _really_ should see a doctor, and then...that's it. Paul has no recollection whatsoever of what had happened after that. Once again, he's missing something, missing _time._ Only now, it was different. Unlike on Christmas, he hadn’t gotten drunk. Maybe he’d planned on doing so tonight, as it's New Year’s Eve (didn’t Hamilton invite him to Tunnel?), but he knows he'd stopped at his apartment first, intending to strip out of his work clothes and into something nicer. His head had _hurt._ His head had _hurt_ and he’d needed to take care of that first. What happened? Why doesn't he remember? _And where is he???_

Interrupting his train of thought is a click from the bathroom door. Half a second later, it swings open. Paul jerks and sits up from the floor, hugging his knees as a tall, muscular man steps inside. The pin on his shirt reads MANAGER.

“Sir,” he begins, voice gruff, “if you don’t leave now, we’re callin’ the cops.”

Paul tenses. The cops? What the _fuck?_

“What’s happening?”

It's the only question he can muster, nearly on the verge of a panic attack. He just needs information, anything that might trigger a vague enough memory to let him know the gist of why he is on the floor of a public restroom. The manager only glares at him, crossing his arms and almost growling, “Don’t make a fuss, please.”

When the man starts moving towards him, Paul wills himself to quickly stand up on his feet, swaying and leaning against the wall to support him. His clothes feel wet. _Had he fallen in the gutter?_ Looking down, he sees that his clothes are covered in all different colored stains: brown, red, yellow, green. The yellow is interesting. A piece of trash hangs loosely from his shoulder, a wet newspaper that had stuck onto him somehow.

Paul’s vision blurs, the aftershocks of nausea hitting him in full force. He considers lying back down, but then the manager is grabbing him by the nape of his button-up, forcefully dragging him out of the bathroom. Paul’s legs fail to keep up, the whole room rushing by in a blur, though he's able to catch a glimpse of a bright menu on the wall behind the cash register. Slipping on empty sauce packets (that Paul notices are _covering_ the floor), he damn near plummets to the ground, only being saved by the manager grabbing a hold of his suspender straps.

Then Paul’s shoes ( _shoe_ , he only has one fucking shoe on) are barely even touching the ground, and before he can realize what's happening, he is thrown out of the building, collapsing onto the sidewalk with a grunt.

The man who'd thrown him out stands guard as Paul simply lies there for a while, like some sort of roadkill. Satisfied, the manager backs into the restaurant, closing and locking the glass doors. Paul groans in agony, his head pounding even worse now, the stench of garbage and something rotten burning his senses. The concrete is uncomfortable, but sufficient enough until he regains his bearings. Wiping his nose, blood and snot smearing onto his cuff sleeve, Paul slowly, painfully tries to stand back on his feet. A puddle of liquid pools on the ground where his head had been resting; he wonders if he made that.

What the fuck is going on? His temples ache horribly. He grabs at his head, intending to somehow relieve the pain, but he quickly retreats, touching something wet and sticky: a _brown_ substance. It could be anything, but he doesn’t want to think too much about it. Where is he? _Why_ is he here? And the most important question: _how_ did he get there?

Turning around, he sets his sights upon the glaringly bright fast food sign: Wendy’s. Paul almost pukes again.

He sees the cars rushing by then, taxis, limos. A horrible dread falls over him. _Has anyone seen him like this?_ Panicking, Paul scrambles to get away from standing in plain sight, sprinting to the nearest alleyway.

He's unsure as to how long he runs. He runs until his leg muscles hurt more than his head does; he runs until the neon glowing sign of the fast food restaurant is out of sight; he runs until he has to lean up against the wall, keel over, and gag. His stomach is empty, leaving him with nothing to do but dry heave, spit and something _green_ drooling from his mouth. Struggling to breathe, Paul rests himself against the cold bricks, gathering his strength. The odor permeating the air is unbearable, and he isn’t even sure if it's from the multiple homeless people he’s passed down the shady back alleys, or _himself_.

His forehead glistens with what he supposes is sweat; he wipes his hand across it. When he glances down, his palm is coated in red and...green. Fucking green _again._

“What...the _fuck._..is happening to me...?”

Coughing into the corner of his elbow — fuck, is that blood? — Paul pushes off of the wall he’d been resting upon, making his way to the street. No one is around. It's New Year’s, everyone is gathered in Times Square. Songs echo in the distance, cheering, screaming. Has the clock not yet struck midnight? Is it still 1989?

Just as Paul thinks he’ll have to walk home in this state, he hears the familiar sound of screeching tires, of a vehicle rounding the corner. Snapping his head up, hope flares in his chest, blossoming into relief as headlights shine through the darkness — a taxi.

“T-Taxi—!” Paul cries, one hand up, the other fumbling in his pockets for his wallet. Just as his fingers brush against the familiar leather material, he spots something out of the corner of his eye. No, not something — _someone._ Walking down the sidewalk across the street, a skip in their step.

Is that _Marcus_?

Paul goes rigid, unsure of what to do. He can’t be seen, but he needs to get home _fast._ It's too late, however, for just as the taxi pulls over, Marcus turns his head towards Paul. Before jumping into the taxi, their eyes meet, and Paul sweats that Marcus’s irises are _glowing_ blue. And is his nose _dripping blue as well...?_

Stepping into the backseat, Paul mumbles his address and rests his head against the seat cushions as the taxi starts moving. Agony pulses from within his skull, worse than _any_ hangover he’s ever had. Pale and trembling, he rolls down the window in an attempt to cope with the car sickness.

He needs to sleep. He needs to go to his apartment and sleep it off and maybe he’ll see a doctor this week. Perhaps he’ll rest until they arrive. Close his eyes for a moment. The cab driver will wake him up, it’ll be fine. He's so fucking tired. So _drowsy..._

_Hehehe *hic* hehehe *hic*..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to leave comments!! (uwu)


	4. if we’re dead already, then let’s keep going.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick goes on a date with an old flame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ACK thank you all so much for ur comments and feedback!! this is a HEFTY chapter gang!!!!
> 
> (side note: this scene is essentially the chapter “Lunch with Bethany” from the novel, so you’ll see a bit of dialogue from that scene in this chapter!!)
> 
>  **tw:** murder, drugs, gore, animal death, vomiting, GALLONS of blue shit
> 
> [edited 8/13/20: present tense, formatting, details]

1990\. The start of a new, grand, exciting decade. Evidently, it hasn’t been a great start. 

The new trend for this year is coffee; people are going crazy over it. Cafés are shooting up on the business charts, growing in size each day. There would be lines out the door, blocking the sidewalks, impeding your progress in trying to get to work. Coffee is terrible for people. It heightens their stress levels to make them feel awake and alert, which in turn makes the body release stress hormones such as cortisol. Caffeine increases the amount of oil produced by the sebaceous glands, causing the face to be more prone to breakouts. All of which contributes in making your face look... _older._

Today, Patrick Bateman is finishing up a squash match with the guys at the Yale Club. Most of the game has consisted of Van Patten and McDermott trying to nail the ball as hard as they can at one another, and naturally, as soon as they’d taken a few hits (red splotchy bruises having formed from the impact), they finally stopped. Sweat cascades down Patrick’s neck, but it is’t from the match — Paul Owen is on the other side of the court with Craig. Who invited him is a whole different story (Patrick has no clue). The problem still remains regardless: Paul is _here._ In the same room as him. 

They don't speak to one another. In fact, it seems as if that _Paul_ is the one avoiding _Patrick._ This had angered Patrick at first, but then he'd remembered New Year’s Eve (how could he forget?). It had brought a strange sense of satisfaction, seeing someone who's usually so well put-together in such a state, even if Patrick had known that the time that he hadn’t looked the best either.

“Alright guys, where’s the reservations for lunch?” McDermott asks, playfully shoving Van Patten as he makes his way over to their side of the court. David almost falls into Patrick from the force of it; he laughs, imagining smashing the middle of his racket over Van Patten’s head, the strings snapping. 

“That’s all you’re ever worried about,” Patrick sighs, combing a hand through his sweaty, sticky hair. Craig shrugged. 

“Just like to know where we’re heading. I’m fuckin' starving.” Craig slaps Paul, who's just made his way over, on the back. “Right, Owen? Can’t get enough of that Sizzler, all that fried shrimp and shit.” 

The guys all laugh as Paul shoves Craig back, protesting. Patrick's gaze locks on the gash on his forehead, the marks on his cheeks. The pseudo Glasgow smile appears inflamed, _worse_ than when he’d last seen him, as does the cut that goes back into his scalp. Patrick notes as well the now permanent split through Paul’s right eyebrow, and he just can’t help himself from smiling in satisfaction at that.

Van Patten catches a glimpse of the wounds as well; he stops laughing and cringes, pointing to his own face. “Fuck. Paul you’re uh... _leaking_ again.” 

This has become normal now for some reason. The scars all over his face had been hilarious to the guys in at first, but now, after weeks of no improvement, the people around him have started to grow more concerned (or is it irritated?) by it.

Owen’s face drops. He lifts a hand to his head and pulls it away, surprised at the green and red liquid trickling out. He feels his cheeks and shudders — the scars on his face have started to ooze as well. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

McDermott rolls his eyes.“Owen you need to fix that shit. We’ve had to stop the match about six times because of you.” He crosses his arms over his chest, huffing out a breath. “Go see a doctor or something, 'cause now you’re starting to ruin _my_ life too.”

Owen opens his mouth, closes it. He actually _had_ seen a doctor that very first week of January after New Year’s. Paul would never forget the doctor’s expression of disbelief and terror as he had sat on the medical bed and removed his hands from his face, exposing his injuries with shame. The gash on his forehead had been, without a doubt, infected, and though he'd been assured that the strong antibiotic ointment given to him would help, there still had been one unusual factor that the medical professional just couldn’t place: the _green shit._

Paul thought it was some kind of pus before, but apparently the color is far too vibrant, the consistency too similar to some kind of _slime._ They’d taken a sample to be examined in a lab, but unfortunately found _nothing_. All they can do is keep an eye on it. 

It's been eleven days since then, and it's only gotten worse. 

No one around him can tell that the migraines had worsened, that recently he’s started leaving work earlier to curl up in his bed, face buried in a pillow, willing for the pain to pass, for the painkillers to do their fucking _job._

“...Owen?” 

Paul blinks rapidly, staring down at his hand. The sight of the multicolored substances makes him sway, unsteady on his feet. As Van Patten helps steady him, Paul’s gaze finds the man he knows as Marcus, and feels a sudden surge of _fear._ His eyes, normally a deep brown, shine a bright sapphire; he's wearing a clear raincoat over his squash uniform, a bloodstained axe in his grasp. His features twist into a crooked grin, and he asks— 

“Hey, you doin’ alright, _Paul?”_

Owen shakes his head. The vision dissipates, and Marcus stands there, unchanged. 

“Hey, Owen, dude.” David snaps his fingers in front of Paul, whose gaze is still somewhat vacant. Van Patten's expression is tinged with genuine concern, and when Paul once more refocuses himself, their eyes meet. “You feelin’ okay? You look _real_ pale.” 

McDermott, the usual asshole of the group, even appears worried. Whether his regards for Owen’s health are for his own benefit or out of the kindness of his heart is uncertain. “Christ, Owen, just go home. Seriously, maybe you should go to the hospital if you’re gonna be like this. At this point, I’d just bandage your face up.” 

Paul’s world turns on its axis. Marcus hasn’t spoken up again, and there's that blue stuff again, in his nose, leaking down past his lips. 

“Y-Yeah...” Owen dusts himself off, dismissing the guys’ concerns. “Uh...we can pick this up later, okay?” 

“You got it, man,” Van Patten assures him, chastising McDermott a second later as the latter makes a snide remark about how Paul’s scars make him look like the Joker. Owen just exhales, turning his attention to the other man they’d been playing with, the familiar pounding in his skull building. 

“Don’t forget: dinner reservations for two at Dorsia on Saturday,” he says, and looking directly into Patrick Bateman’s eyes, adds, “Be there or be square, Marcus.” 

Patrick watches him leave, hands tightening into fists at his side. His vision, as opposed to flashing red, is a vibrant blue. Bringing a hand up, he wipes at whatever drips along his mouth, the taste oddly sweet, like candy. 

“Seriously, man, I’ve got a fuckin’ _hankering_ for Texarcana,” he hears David groan. Patrick's unamused as Van Patten pulls up his shirt, exposing his stomach and patting it with his racket. McDermott scoffs and yanks it down; Bateman hums a nameless tune and wonders if he could snap the racket in half and impale Van Patten on it.

“Nuh-uh,” Craig tuts, aggravated, “the coke I scored there last time was cut with so much laxative I—” 

Van Patten laughs (“Whoa, low point of the evening much?”), and suddenly, Bateman is very interested in their conversation. Trying not to think about Paul Owen and how he should been fucking dead and nothing but dissolved bits of bone, flesh, and organs, he butts in. “How about Tunnel? Nell’s?” 

This has McDermott equally intrigued. A knowing smile splays across his features. “I like how ya think, Bateman.” 

All at once, the man seems just as fidgety as Bateman. Copying his grin, the faux expression tight and uncomfortable, Patrick says, “Let’s get dressed then. I got a dinner date at 7:00 at Vanities.”

* * *

Tunnel is mostly dead when they arrive, seeing as it's only just past lunchtime. There aren’t nearly as many people as there had been on New Year’s. McDermott and Patrick waste no time in charging past everybody in there, taking advantage of the short line to the restrooms. Patrick considers gutting the few people who are in their way, preferably with a steak knife he'd spotted on one of the tables. 

Rushing to the stalls is a relief. They easily steal one and hunch over the toilet. Patrick stands over Craig, antsy, bouncing on his heels. The music is so quiet. He swears it's practically calling him, urging him to go out and mingle. “Hurry up Craig, fuck!” 

“Wait a damn minute, Bateman, I just sat down.” 

He quickly does a line, ignoring the blue specks in the powder (his dealer's gone for a few weeks so he’ll be damned if he wastes anything). Craig shoots up, practically being pulled back by his colleague, watching as Patrick finishes up the rest of it. 

Leaning against the stall, Craig grabs his nose. The familiar burning sensation is worse than usual. Patrick's up on his feet then, spinning around with an unnatural grin. Craig swears that there's something _blue_ leaking out of Bateman's nose, though he could have been seeing things. 

“Fuck, I think Ricardo spiked that or something,” McDermott grumbles, hand muffling his voice. The stall suddenly feels too tight, and he's overwhelmed with the urge to get out in the open. A steady tune plays from outside, sound pouring into the bathroom.

“You feel it kicking in?” Patrick grins, exiting the stall and spinning on his heel to stare back at Craig, waiting for him to follow. He sways to the beat, the music only growing in volume. 

“Uh, yeah...” It's too much and not enough at once, and while the sensation doesn’t necessarily feel _bad,_ it still scares him to a degree. “I think...I think they turned up the music out there?” 

He wipes at his nose, pulling his hand back to find red mixed with a thick blue substance. 

“Bateman, is that—?” He glances up, eyes widening in horror: blue shit is _pouring_ from Patrick’s nose. “Whoa. I’m tripping the fuck out right now, I think.” 

Patrick grabs his arm, pulling him out of the stall. “Worry about it later, McDermott.” 

With a small kick in his step, Bateman makes his way out the restrooms. The moment they step out onto the dance floor, McDermott completely forgets about the blue stuff, the music blasting in Tunnel somehow _enhanced._

“Holy shit. Are they playing ‘Genius of Love’?” Craig staggers through the crowd with Patrick, trying to keep up. “I fucking _love_ the Tom Tom Club!”

* * *

It only occurs to Patrick, twenty minutes before 7:00 PM, that he has a date with Bethany, an old flame from his Harvard days. He’s quite certain that's who she is, anyway; his memories of college were always a bit _fuzzy._ It takes enormous strength for him to pull himself away from the crowd, the seductive melodies blaring from the club almost gripping onto him, begging for him not to leave. It seems right to stay, to let the music flow through him, and upon glancing down at himself, he finds that his silk button-up shirt has been stained with droplets of blue. 

Rubbing at his face, Bateman exits the club, not even bothering with saying his goodbyes to McDermott. The warmth of the drug flows through his veins, the muscles on his face aching, and he just can’t stop _smiling._ His body feels light as he strolls down the sidewalk, his head buzzing as every song he’s ever listened to plays at once. For once, he feels alive — he _feels._ He chases that feeling, holds it close, and (seemingly unconsciously) begins moving in time to a beat that only he can hear, singing “Don’t You Want Me” at the top of his lungs. He cares not about the strange looks strangers gave him. 

By the time he makes it to Vanities, he's fifteen minutes late. The euphoria has lessened somewhat, and the restaurant is dead silent, save for the chattering of its patrons about finances and the frantic murmurs of the chefs and waiters who scramble to serve meals. Straightening himself out, Patrick feels the buzzing in his skull become an almost nonexistent hum. Disappointed, he lets out a deep breath, approaching the front desk and telling the maître d’, a young male, that he has reservations. The man appears confused, but begins leading Patrick to his desired table anyway. The lightheaded feeling starts to melt away, and it's because of this that Bateman finds that he's _incredibly_ anxious.

His anxieties only worsen as they approach the table where Bethany sits, waiting patiently. She's beautiful, _stunning_ even, like a model, and as Patrick seats himself down before her, he discovers that his hands are trembling. The humming is still there. He wants that feeling again, that carefree, joyous _feeling._

He licks his lips. He still tastes the blue shit, but the sweetness unfortunately only lingers, and doesn't last. 

“Did...you have trouble getting reservations?” Patrick realizes he's speaking. His vision blurs. He's unable to face her fully, his hands clasped together on the table, shaking violently. 

“You don’t need reservations here, Patrick,” she says, coolly, and then, seeing Patrick’s state, settles her hand atop of his. “Calm down. You look like a wild man.” 

Patrick forces a grin. “I’m clam— I mean, _calm.”_

His breathing comes out in trembling gasps; he fears he's on the verge of a panic attack. The words slipping out before he could think too hard about them, he asks, “How’s my hair look?” 

Laughing, she shakes her head. “Your hair is fine.” 

After a short pause, in which he forces his quaking hands on his lap, shaking the table, she comments, “That’s a nice suit. Henry Stuart?” 

Insulted, his heart stops in his chest, a lump forming in his throat. “No.” He stares across the table in disbelief. “ _Garrick Anderson_.” 

Bethany tilts her head, clearly ignoring him. “Are you okay, Patrick? You just...twitched.” 

An excuse forms on his lips, something about the Trump Shuttle and Washington, but by this point he can’t keep track of his own words, too focused on fixing his hair in the reflection of the silverware on the table. He asks about _The Patty Winter’s Show_ : Patrick Swayze had been the big debate, and whether he's becoming too cynical or not. Bethany believes it had been Michael J. Fox that was on. This causes Patrick's whole body to tremble uncontrollably, his knee bouncing violently. Luckily, he's able to break out of this daze, reaching into his pocket. 

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He hands her a slip of paper. “I wrote you a poem.” 

He urges her to read it out loud, smirking as she looks it over and then back at Patrick, confused. Bethany does read it, eventually, though she keeps her voice as soft and quiet as possible, barely above a whisper, but loud enough for Patrick and surrounding tables to hear. By the time she finishes, having paused frequently throughout, the couple at the next table have slowly turned to gaze over at them. The man looks aghast and the woman has an equally horrified expression. Patrick makes eye contact with the nameless woman, glaring until she turns and looks at her stupid _fucking_ salad.

“Well, Patrick,” Bethany says, clearing her throat, trying to politely smile. She hands the paper back. 

“Yes?” he asks. “Well?” 

“I can see that” — she stops to think — “that your sense of...social justice is...still intact.” 

He takes back the slip of paper, shoving it nonchalantly into his vest pocket, trying to maintain his grin. A burning pain flares up in his sinuses, something he’s only just now become aware of. The sensation has been present all _evening._ Dully, music fizzles to light through the crowds of people conversing. Patrick’s panic resurfaces tenfold.

The waiter finally returns, and Patrick almost frantically begins asking what different kinds of beer are available. 

“Heineken, Budweiser, Amstel Light,” the waiter recites.

“Yes?” Patrick urges him to continue.

“That’s, um, all, sir,” he replies, awkwardly. Patrick suppresses the urge to plunge the untouched steak knife on the table into the waiter's stomach, an orchestra swelling as he twists, twists, _twists the blade until—_

“No Corona? No Kirin? No Grolsch? No Morretti?” Patrick's positively sweating at this point. “Fine, I-I’ll have a J&B on the rocks. No, an Absolut Martini. No, a J&B straight up.” 

“And I’ll have a San Pellegrino,” Bethany says.

“I’ll have the same thing,” Patrick quickly adds. Holding his jittering leg down with one arm, he nervously glances towards Bethany again. Something _leaks_ from his nose, but he doesn’t bother touching it. 

“Okay. Would you like to hear the specials?” the waiter asks. 

“By all means,” Patrick spits out. 

Shuffling awkwardly, the man says, “For appetizers, I have the sun-dried tomatoes and golden caviar with poblano chilies, and I also have a fresh endive soup—” 

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Bateman interrupts, holding up a hand. 

“Yes, sir?” the waiter asks, confused. 

“ _You_ have? You mean the _restaurant_ has,” he corrects the young man. “ _You_ don’t have any sun-dried tomatoes. The restaurant does. _You_ don’t have the poblano chilies. The restaurant does. Just, you know, clarify.” 

The waiter stands, stunned, thrown off guard by Bateman’s outburst. Quickly, Bethany pipes up, handling the situation expertly, and at some point Patrick does eventually order something. The waiter eventually leaves them, shaken, which makes Patrick believe he had threatened him at some point. 

“— _atrick?_ Patrick?” 

Bethany appears worried, staring in shock. Patrick quickly adjusts his hair, not even covering his nerves now, his leg still bouncing violently, “What?” 

She gestures down. “Your leg? What’s...wrong with it?” 

As he looks down, a glob of blue drips onto his lap, sitting on top of his quaking leg. The music playing in Vanities is _loud_ , louder than he remembered when he'd first walked in. A waiter (not theirs) walks by and Patrick grabs him, asking him to turn down the music, to which the waiter just stares, confused. 

Twitchy, Patrick turns back to Bethany. “It’s the music. I...like it a lot. The music that’s playing.”

She simply stares at him, her eyes bulging, face paling. “Your...nose?” 

Patrick lifts his fingers to his nose — the burning has not yet subsided, persistent and intensifying by the second — and when he pulls away, a shiny, slimy substance coats his fingertips. The music crescendos and he grabs onto a random waitress, almost screaming at her to turn it down. Realizing that Bethany's becoming uncomfortable, he quickly rises from his chair. 

“I’ll” — Patrick freezes as a blue droplet falls onto the tablecloth — “be right back.” 

_Fuck._ Maybe he shouldn’t have snorted that shit before the date. The music from the restaurant is like a siren’s song, calling to him, the tune (he can’t place it, some jazz song) weaving its way through his brain, his nervous system. His leg is _vibrating_ and he's practically limping to the men’s room because of it, grasping for the sink counter to ground himself. Someone who he momentarily thinks is Timothy Price — but no, he assures himself, it's Todd Hamlin — pats his shoulder, laughs out “see you at Harry’s tomorrow, Baxter!” and leaves. The thrumming in the back of his skull becomes more noticeable, a strange _numbness_ crawling up and down his spine.

Turning on one of the faucets with shaky hands, Patrick feels the panic that had once been at the forefront of his mind grow distant, detached, a calmness flooding throughout him. He finds he doesn’t care that the music from the restaurant is deafening, reverberating within his head. His lips began forming words, a melody that he's unfamiliar with, and he meets his reflection’s eyes... 

_Patrick Bateman._

His head jolts backwards violently, and as suddenly as he had left it, Bateman is snapped back to reality. Before he can figure out who the _fuck_ had spoken to him, it comes to his attention that his nosebleed has grown worse. No, it's not a nosebleed, it isn’t _blood._ Instead, **b** **lue shit** flows steadily from both nostrils, down past his lips, cascading off of his chin and staining his Armani suit. _Fuck fuck fuck._

Thankful that no one else is in the restroom to mock him, Patrick grabs at the paper towels and begins wiping at his face. The steady stream of whatever the fuck the _blue shit_ is won’t stop. It keeps coming and coming and _coming_. Even as he holds the flimsy paper to his nose, it's soaked with blue in seconds, coating his hands in the substance.

“Fucking fucking _fuck_...” 

Left with no other option, he tosses the dirty towels in the trash can (missing it entirely) and staggers to one of the restroom stalls, locking the door behind him and crouching over the toilet. That familiar sweetness fills his mouth as he watches the stuff dribble from his nose into the water, and with a deeply rooted horror, realizes that he's starting to drool the stuff. 

His eardrums are ready to burst. The music is so loud. _It's too loud._ Is there something wet in his ears? Oh fuck, oh fuck, his frame trembles, buzzes, his body wants to _move_ but he can’t, he can’t, and then he's coughing up mouthfuls of blue shit into the toilet, screaming (or singing?) until he can't make any sound and we're

Ten minutes later, he returns to Vanities. The “bleeding” has stopped. He's pretty sure his teeth are stained with blue, and as such, he keeps his mouth tightly closed as he walks back to Bethany’s table. His goddamn leg is still twitching. He's shaken and on the verge of a panic attack, if he hadn’t already had one in the men’s room. What the fuck is happening to him? Why is there blue shit leaking from him? 

_WHY WON’T THEY TURN DOWN THE FUCKING MUSIC?!_

“Bethany, Bethany,” he repeats her name under his breath, trying not to think about the tightness in his throat, the sharp pain in his nose. He reproaches his date, grasping her hand. “We’re leaving.” 

As expected, she's bewildered. “But we just—”

“We’ll eat at my place,” he grits out, needing to leave, to tune out the music. If he doesn’t get out of there soon, he's certain that he’ll break the speakers with his own fucking fist. “ _Come on, Bethany, I’ll pay for your fucking salad._ ” 

After an awkward exchange where he accidentally tries to pay for Bethany’s dinner with an expired coupon for Honey Nut Cheerios, Patrick drags her outside and hails a cab, grateful that they’d left, the music no longer _roaring_ in his ears. 

...but he still hears it. It's still enough to make him rock on the balls of his feet as he tries to hail a cab, hyper aware of every note, every vibration. He can feel it _vibrating_ under his skin. _It never stops._

Patrick doesn’t remember how they’d ended up at his apartment. All he can recall is himself yelling at the moron fucking cabbie to turn off the radio, complaining that his head hurt. Truthfully, his head hadn’t hurt, and it still doesn't. Not really. There's a dull ache that he can’t place. He feels like he's floating. Had the music stopped?

Not quite aware of his surroundings, he starts pouring two glasses of wine for him and Bethany. There's a tickle at the back of his throat. His sinuses burn worse than before.

Bethany's admiring the David Onica hanging above the fireplace, looking at it, then to Patrick, then back, and giggling softly. Confused, he hands her the glass of wine, vaguely remembering the brand new nail gun he’d just bought from the hardware store sitting untouched in his Anaholian white-oak armoire. He feels for leather in his jacket pocket, pulling out and slipping on his leather gloves. 

“Patrick?” she asks, giggling. 

“Yes?” he says, the building pain in his sinuses causing him to sniffle. Silently, he prays that she doesn’t think he has the flu. “Darling?” 

“Who hung the Onica?” she inquires. 

Suddenly, he's rounding the sofa, walking up to the stereo. Music. _Music._ He needs music. That'll calm him down. Just like at Tunnel, he feels better when there's a steady beat playing, something he knows and loved. Fumbling through CDs, he throws multiple discs out of the way, some landing on the floor, until his eyes land on one in particular. 

“You like it?” he shakily responds, already scrambling to pull Chris de Burgh’s _Into the Light_ album from its case, fingers struggling to pinch the disc and drag it out. 

“It’s fine, but...” She pauses, and before she can continue, Patrick is able to successfully get the CD out of its case and jam it into the disc reader.

He sighs in relief as “Lady in Red” begins to play, lolling him out of his near-hysterical state. The steady beat calms him, soothes his soul in a way he can’t place. Unconsciously swaying, he rolls his hips and leans against the glass shelves, not paying any mind to Bethany’s confused looks. 

“Released in 1986, Chris de Burgh came out with an astounding album, _Into the Light_. The album had twelve songs, and featured two singles, “Lady in Red” being one of those. This song was responsible for introducing de Burgh’s music to a more _mainstream_ audience worldwide, earning him a number two spot on the UK Albums Chart. Nick Glennie-Smith is responsible for the _amazing_ keyboard...” 

He trails off, the music ringing in his ears, drumming against the inside of his skull. He's unable to hear himself think, and as he stares off at the ghostly white walls leading to his bathroom, a blue hue tinges the edge of his vision, confusing him. Raising a hand to his face, wiping dryly at his eyes, he realizes he's rubbing off that blue liquid again. _Dancing Plague._ It's a bullshit headline, he knows it is. He can’t be infected with a _fake_ virus created by the government. There's _Draino_ in the cocaine, that was what McDermott had said (the dumbass...). 

The beat grows to a thunderous volume, Chris de Burgh’s vocals becoming more distorted than before, but still remained intriguing. Over the drumming, he's barely able to pick out Bethany’s calling voice. 

“Yes?” he yells over the music, puzzled when Bethany flinches back. 

“It’s upside down,” she says.

Everything freezes in time all at once.

“... _what_?” 

She's laughing. “ _Who_ hung the Onica?” 

“I did,” he says, rubbing at the Draino that now leaks from his eyes like tears. Though he's sure he isn’t crying...

“You’ve hung the Onica _upside down_ ,” she cackles, doubled over with laughter. His hand curls into a fist, squeezing, squeezing. If it weren’t for the leather gloves, he’d have crescent shaped cuts bleeding from the palm of his hand. 

“I can’t believe it’s upside down,” she says. “How long has it been this way?”

An invisible grip tightens around his windpipe. Warmth bubbles up in his throat as he croaks, “A millennium.” 

His Valentino Couture tie, once a deep red, has darkened to maroon. His white button up is now a bright blue, the soaked material clinging to his chest. Patrick thinks Bethany was laughing, but the melodic voices rattling around his brain are loud, deafening, drowning out her voice. A familiar numbness overcomes him, and we're drifting towards the armoire, mimicking Chris de Burgh’s voice perfectly. 

“What?” 

The girl is still talking, not paying attention as we grab the nail gun, squeezing it in our hand. She never understood us. She never listened. Fucking cunt. 

“ _I’ve never seen you looking so gorgeous as you did tonight. I've never seen you shine so bright, you were amazing._ ” 

“Patrick, are you singing?” 

She sips her drink, turning to us as we raised the nail gun, pointing it at her face. Her mouth opens in shock, and her terror is delicious to us, sweeter than our blood. The glass slips from her fingers, shattering on the floor, and she moves to run, but the melody that flows through our veins heightens our senses, and we are upon her in seconds. 

“ _And I have never had such a feeling,_ ” we croon, advancing towards her slowly. She cries out and as she stumbles away from us, she trips over her own fucking Manolo Blahnik pumps. We cock our head to the side. The world is tinted blue. Our essence drips along the hardwood floor. “ _Such a feeling of complete and utter love, as I do tonight..._ ”

It only takes four blows to the head to knock Bethany unconscious. We let our eyes slip shut as we hover over her body, moving in time with the glorious instrumentals. Grabbing at her wrists, we drag the girl into the living room, taking great care with her, not wanting to bruise her (yet), settling her body upon a Voilacutro cotton sheet. Dark red oozes from her temple. We lick at it with our tongue, finding we very much enjoy the coppery flavor. 

“ _The lady in red is dancing with me, cheek to cheek. There's nobody here, it's just you and me..._ ” 

Her screams as we nail her fingers to wooden boards are music to our ears.

* * *

“ _But I hardly know! This beauty by my side, I’ll never forget the way you look tonight!_ ”

Craig McDermott laughs, doing a twirl on the sidewalk and nearly toppling over as the world continues to spin around him. Tunnel had kicked him out, though he can’t remember why. All he'd caught was the tail end of _“get off the table”_ from the bouncers before he'd sprinted outside. 

The baggie in his vest had run out at some point in the night. He wholeheartedly blames Patrick for that one, despite recalling the events of _himself_ dropping it on the floor of the bathroom. _Patrick_. Where the fuck had he run off to? He'd been worried at first, but then the blonde hardbody sitting alone at the bar had kept beckoning him over and he doesn’t really remember much after that. 

He likes to think that he scored, but there's nobody to brag about it to (and, well, McDermott kinda hopes he _didn’t_ score). Patrick _left_ him, and oh, he's fucking _pissed_ at Patrick. Van Patten wouldn’t have left him alone. Especially not when Craig had been keeled over in the restroom toilet, emptying his stomach of the Draino. He should’ve invited Van Patten. 

Trying to forget about everything (which he has, for the most part, already done), Craig skips lazily, beginning to belt the notes to “And She Was” by Talking Heads. 

“ _Hey! And she was lying in the grass! And she could hear the highway breathing. And she could see a nearby factory!_ ” 

He spots a homeless man, or woman — they're covered in a blanket, stained with brown — hunched over in an alleyway, holding up a sign. McDermott smirks, trotting up to them, before his foot catches on a stationary trash can and he plummets to the dirt, face first. 

“ _S_ _he’s making sure she is not dreaming!_ ” he sings out, though his mouth seems to be moving without him thinking. Concerned, he notices the blue puddle forming on the pavement by his head, dribbling out of his mouth. 

_Fuckin' Draino._

From here, he can see what the sign reads: _I AM HUNGRY AND HOMELESS. HELP ME._

“Hey,” McDermott slurs, dragging himself off of the pavement and kneeling in front of what he now sees is an old man. “Hey, hey. Hey!” 

The hobo slowly looks up, trembling, hand clutching an empty styrofoam cup. 

Craig grins playfully, fumbling for his wallet. “ _See the lights of a neighbor’s house. Now she’s starting to rise!_ ” 

He pulls out a hundred dollar bill, mistaking it for one dollar, and shakes it in the bum’s face. “You hungry? Want food, water, clothes?” 

The man nods, hugging himself. Craig hears him sob. 

“Why don’t you get a fucking job then?” He laughs, snagging the bill away as soon as the bum makes a move to grab it. Craig rises to his feet and spins around, but something stops him. His sinuses flare up, burning. A _searing_ pain. It must be the Draino cocaine. This is the last time he bought from fucking Ricardo. 

He doesn't even notice that he’d crumpled the bill in his hands, resorting it to nothing but a ball of paper. A sudden urge hits him then: to turn back around and beat the shit out of the hobo.

Craig slowly glances back over to the man, who is curled over and sobbing, looking very sickly and frail. He grins, that strange sense of euphoria that he'd felt at Tunnel rushing through his body all at once. 

“ _Take a minute to concentrate, and she opens up her eyes~!_ ” Flicking the crumpled paper behind him and into the street where it rolls into the sewage drain, Craig stalks towards him, bouncing on his heels. “ _The world was moving, she was right there with it and she was...!_ ” 

The hobo's staring up at him now, just watching with a solemn and confused look. Craig almost punches him right then, pissed that his rotting breath and shit stained clothes are burning his senses, making his eyes water. (Yet they aren’t watering. The tears are...blue. His collared shirt is stained a bright blue, his tie an even darker shade.)

But he can’t stop himself now. The lyrics tumble from his mouth, and he isn’t able to stop... _singing._

“ _The world was moving, she was floating above it and she was- and she was!_ ” He towers over the bum, thinking about how useless this body in front of him is. It wouldn’t matter if that body just... _disappeared._

A crash from across the way snags his attention. 

He hears trash cans falling over and a rustle, like something getting attacked. Nobody else is out. It's late. Not even that many cars are driving around and McDermott knows for sure that he’d walked into an empty neighborhood. He spots a small form tumble out of the dumpster then, behind a nearby apartment building adjacent to him.

“Holy shit, is that Reed Robinson?” Craig laughs, staggering to the edge of the sidewalk, leaning heavily on a light pole and squinting at the person. 

A loud yelp is heard, an animal, and then he spots the ratty, stray dog, barking and hissing at the figure. They're wearing a light blue collared shirt (Craig is too drunk to try and figure out the brand names) that had been stained a putrid brownish and near red color. They're also sporting a spotted, yellow tie with a blue striped pattern, navy suspenders (that Craig _can_ name the brand of) from Albert Thurston, and navy trousers. 

The stray growls, but Craig _swears_ he hears a deeper, more guttural growl that overpowers the dog. Then the person leaps onto it, biting into its throat and shaking like some type of feral animal. Craig only watches, transfixed and somewhat horrified by the odd scene. The dog stops making noise almost instantly, the stranger tearing into it like a bear would, all teeth, pulling out chunks of flesh. There's a thick string of what looks like a red rope being pulled from its stomach. 

McDermott hugs the pole, completely forgetting the hobo. “Hey! Fuck, Hamlin! What are you doing out here, man?” he giggles, slurring almost every one of his words. 

“Hamlin” freezes, slowly turning his head to stare up at him. It's then that Craig sees a large gash on his colleague’s forehead, trailing all the way down his temple, and a smile that stretches impossibly wide on his face. It all seems strangely familiar, but it's hard to tell from the red shit covering his entire face.

“Davis? Buddy, the fuck are ya doin’ out so late?” Craig calls. 

The ravenous stranger backs up silently, dragging the corpse of the dog from his view. McDermott watches him until he's out of sight, disappearing behind the apartment building. 

As if nothing had happened, Craig turns around, facing the hobo. Had he ever asked for his name? 

“Jesus Christ! Bet Cynthia's pissed about that one, Evan’s usually not out that late. She’s a control freak.” He chuckles, swinging around the pole like a carousel. “I bet David would fucking get a kick out of this one.” 

With that, McDermott skips down the sidewalk again, shuffling and spinning. 

“ _And she was drifting through the backyard! And she was taking off her dress!_ ”

At some point, as he walks under some train tracks, someone screams at him from above: _“Fucking yuppie scum!”_

McDermott just sings louder, flipping off nobody as he runs down the street, kicking stray newspapers and jumping over manhole covers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls feel free to like and comment!!


	5. something's got a hold on me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An early-morning run-in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for this chapter: vomiting, drug use, animal death, gore, violence as always.

_I can't seem to face up to the facts,_ _I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax…_

When Patrick Bateman awakens, it’s 5:17 AM. When Patrick Bateman awakens, the sun is just rising, scarlet rays peeking through the windows of the living room. When Patrick Bateman awakens, he realizes he’s on the floor, blue dripping from his nose and ears. 

When Patrick Bateman awakens, it’s to the smell of rotten meat and the sight of a mutilated, barely recognizable body that he instantly knows is Bethany. 

He blinks, his vision spotted with cerulean. The stereo is blasting, but rather than overwhelming him, it soothes him, a prospect which makes him even  _ more _ uneasy. As he stands, he becomes more aware of himself, his surroundings: his skin feels cold, sticky, the air around him stuffy. The stench is overpowering. Blood (and some kind of blue shit?) stains his suit; he can feel it underneath his fingernails, could taste it in his mouth. Sharp. Coppery.

_ I can’t sleep ‘cause my bed’s on fire, don't touch me I’m a real live wire... _

He turns off the stereo, averting his eyes from his dead ex who lay not six feet away from him. He’d envisioned her murder multiple times. He’d considered it before Bethany had even asked him to meet. The nail gun in his armoire hadn’t just been conveniently stashed there. He hadn’t bought the wooden planks for no reason.

What bothers him is that he doesn’t remember  _ anything. _ Nothing but Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red.”

As he strips down, his hands shake. The clothes are thrown into his fireplace, and after watching them turn to ash, he strides into his bathroom, each step slow, methodical, as if he’s stepping on glass. Splotches of red and blue paint his chest, and he has a strong urge to wash it all off. He only glances to his reflection once before turning on the shower, a shudder running through him. Licking dried lips, he steps under the hot water, barely flinching as it burns his skin. “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads echoes from the other room. He thought he’d turned it off.

...had his eyes always been  _ blue _ ? 

_ Psycho Killer, qu’est-ce que c’est, fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better... _

Once he’s washed away of any and all impurities, Patrick steps out of the shower, not bothering to stick to any sort of routine. His head is foggy, more so than usual, and as he picks out a new Brooks Brothers suit from his closet, he thinks that he might as well take three Xanax today. It’s only halfway through dressing that he notices he’s humming to himself, seemingly unconsciously. 

He’s thankful he’d already dismembered Bethany. Trash bags in hand, he begins tossing out each body part. (Her hands are difficult, as the nails truly keep the fingers in place, however awfully mangled they are.) Blue mingled with red on her naked, bloodied corpse. Like some odd display of Nationalism. At this thought, Patrick begins whistling “The Star Spangled Banner,” once again unaware that he’s doing so until the song finishes. 

Lifting her decapitated head, he peers into her mouth — she’s missing her tongue. It’s sitting on the floor beside her, the color a deep blue instead of the usual pinkish color. Unexplainably, he begins to cry as he finishes cleaning up, tying the bags closed. Music fills his head. 

_ Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away oh oh _

_ Psycho Killer, qu’est-ce que c’est, _

_ Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better... _

All sensations are muted as he sits in the back of a cab he’d hailed, his leg bouncing, anxiety knotting in his stomach. When had he killed her? When had he removed her tongue? When had he crucified her with the nail gun? What is the blue shit? Why does he  _ still _ hear music? 

The destination is Hell’s Kitchen. A bag of lime is tucked under his arm. With a glance to the black trash bags placed beside him, he silently hopes she won’t come back like Paul Owen had. He hopes she’ll stay dead. He hopes this isn’t a dream. He wants to know what the fuck had happened and what his David Onica has to do with it. 

His Sony Walkman sits in his pocket. He doesn’t think he’ll listen to it ever again. 

_ Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away...oh oh oh oh! _

_ Yeah yeah yeah yeah...! _

* * *

_ Dropping his head, he’s immobile. The alcohol and the drugs are just all too much. He can barely move, can barely think. He just watches as a figure (someone he should recognize), sways from side to side, talking. God, he won’t shut up...is he wearing a raincoat? He needs another drink. Then, the figure’s holding something, looming over him. _

_ “We’re both twenty-seven years old...” _

_ He should rewatch  _ Back to the Future. _ Tom Cruise is really good in that one...or is it Clint Eastwood? Who the fuck plays Marty McFly again? _

_ “Did you know that...Pauuuuuuul?” _

_ Up close, he can put a name to the face.  _

_ Marcus Halberstam...? _

_ Then something sharp wedges itself into his mouth, sideways. Burning, hurting. It hurts so bad. And he’s on the floor, blood pooling around the newspaper he lays face down on. Chunks of flesh are landing next to his face. Tears stain his eyes (though they might not be tears). A splitting headache, god he can’t see. He can’t fucking see out of his left eye, it hurts. Fuck, it hurts so bad... _

A light breeze, dusting against soft cheeks, flowing through hair. Cars honking, buses hissing, the ground rumbles from a passing subway miles underneath the surface. Quiet. No people. No voices, frantic tapping of shoes, nothing. It isn’t present. 

Sucking in a deep breath of air, Paul nearly sputters and gags at the putrid smell of what could only be identified as what filtered out of his air conditioner last year when a rat died somewhere in the vents: the smell of rotting. Of  **death** .

Paper rustles against his thrashing limbs; he’s struggling to move, to get out of whatever the hell he’s fallen into. He knows for sure that this isn’t his bed. 

Upon opening his eyes, Paul’s met with the sky. Orange and yellow swirls, reaching into what was once a black abyss of emptiness. Stars don’t exist in New York. The pollution from buildings and cars had blocked everything out, and it’s these types of things that made him miss the Hamptons. The beautiful, early morning sky does nothing to ease his nerves. 

Paul has no clue where the fuck he is. 

He’s able to sit up, though the quick motion causes a sharp pain in his temples, almost forcing him back down. Flinching, he swears that he hears the echoing of a  _ laugh _ somewhere, though he’s unsure of the source, as it stops instantly once he looks around. Awareness slowly returning to him, Paul notices that there are no people around. He realizes then that he’s in an alleyway.

In a  _ dumpster.  _

He’s still groggy, dazed; he’s close to a panic attack just because of the smell. The odor that’s permeating from the dumpster makes him dry-heave, and he moves his arm, immediately regretting it afterwards as his gaze settles on a horrific sight before him —  _ the decomposing corpse of a dog. _

He  _ screams.  _ In a rush of adrenaline, he kicks off the trash bags and pulls himself over the side of the dumpster, falling in a heap of trash beside it. Gagging, he scrambles away, trying to get out of everything, and he only calms down once he’s sitting on flat asphalt in the middle of the alleyway. 

The dumpster stands tall, an imposing object, nearly making Paul cower back. Everything just seems so overwhelming and his migraine refuses to go away. How much did he drink last night? Who did he go out with? When did he even go  _ out _ ?

Questions, questions. So many questions and yet, not one of them has a concrete answer.

His clothing feels  _ wet _ . And  _ sticky. _

Looking down at himself, he nearly vomits. Something brown is caked all around his hands, trailing up to his forearms. His button up is covered in all types of stains, dark chunks sticking to the bigger splatters. It trails over his suspenders and tie, making his clothes crusty and uncomfortable. The worst part? He has  _ zero _ fucking idea as to what it could be. 

A sense of dread falls over him, as he shakily runs a hand through his hair, hand coming to rest against a chunk of  _ something _ on his cheek. It protrudes out, and when he pinches it, the substance squishes, getting underneath his fingernails; it hurts to peel off his skin, but when it comes off and is resting between his fingertips, Paul lurches, puking on the ground next to him. Something loosens from inside his mouth and ends up on the concrete, but his mouth already tastes bad, and there’s fucking  _ something _ stuck between his teeth, so he tries to ignore it. 

A thick chunk of animal hair, but not just the hair; there’s  _ flesh _ connected to it. 

Dried blood and grime coats the spot that had stuck to his cheek and just  _ looking _ at the shit is bringing another wave of nausea through his system. He’s sweating, though it’s cold, and his face pales as he looks back over to the dumpster. There’s more than one chunk of dead animal on his face, he can  _ feel _ it, and it’s covered in brown; the sweat dripping down his nose brings with it a dull color. 

The dumpster.  _ The dog in the dumpster. _

Unsteadily, he pulls himself to his feet, legs wobbling as he approaches the big metal waste bin. The one he had found himself in. The lid is open, and he stands up on his toes to peer over the side...

_ It’s still sitting there.  _

Paul stares at the dead dog; the dead dog stares back. 

The dog has its stomach sitting on top of the trash bags next to it, dried blood surrounding the area. It’s been here a while; Paul’s been here a while. The dried blood and the brown shit on his clothes and face are, oddly enough, very similar in shade. The dog has hair on it; Paul has dog hair on him. 

“I need to go home.” 

His voice sounds hoarse, like he’d been yelling. Though, it could also be from how dehydrated he is and the fact that he more than likely slept with his mouth open, because he woke up on his back — _ this information is useless. _

Time to go home. He needs to get home. He wants to shower, wants to forget all of  _ this _ . And then go to work and pretend like nothing ever happened. 

Paul staggers away from the dumpster, leaning against the corner of the alleyway, and peeking out. He doesn’t know where he is. But it’s early, and barely anybody is outside yet, except women of the night who are making their great escape from an apartment with a wad of cash in hand before they get caught. Paul has no business with them, so he isn’t worried about that. He just doesn’t want anyone to  _ recognize _ him. 

Now home. He needs to find a place of familiarity. A landmark.  _ Something. _

_ “I used to dream that the day would never come. I’d see delight in the shade of the morning sun...” _

Every muscle in Paul’s body stiffens. Unsteady on his feet, he presses his palm against the wall, colors and images swimming in his vision. (The horrid odor seems to follow him from the dumpster, and it’s only then that the realization dawns on him: the smell  _ is _ him _. _ ) Knees weak, he stumbles forward, as careful and as slow as possible, straining to hear that  _ voice _ , crooning a song he’s heard before. It’s familiar. So fucking familiar, and he can’t pinpoint exactly why, but it’s this familiarity that worsens his anxiety, makes him unbearably sick. The nausea returns, the pounding in his skull becoming more intense, and he’s suddenly on all fours, vomiting up chunks of god knows what and... _ bones _ . 

He’s curled up behind a ton crash can, a pile of his own sick beside him; he wrenches his head from the sight and covers his ears. The voice is getting louder.  _ Closer. _ His breaths quicken, eyes blurring with tears, and there’s something in the back of his mind, a different tune, one that makes his skin crawl and his head flare up in a sharp pain, like  _ fire _ ... 

_ “My morning sun is the drug that brings me near to the childhood I lost replaced by fear. I used to think that the day would never come...” _

Footsteps. Trembling in fear, Paul bites his fist as he sees the stranger’s shadow upon the pavement. There’s a rattling of metal, the sound of a lid opening, and his chest tightens. The dumpster. The one he’d just climbed out of. The one with the dog.

_ Just go, _ he screams internally, hands curling into fists. It’s dark anyway, it’s highly unlikely that this random bystander will see him. As it is, Paul is already terribly frightened of whoever this man is from his voice alone — he wish he knew why. With great strength, he pushes himself away from his hiding spot, crouched and practically crawling away. There’s a thumping of objects in the dumpster behind him. It’s nothing. Just trash. The stranger won’t see the dog. Jesus, Paul hopes he doesn’t see the dog. 

_ “I’d see delight in the shade of the morning sun...I feel so extraordinary, something’s got a hold on me...” _

He’s almost out of the clear. Just a few more feet, and then he’s scott free. Surely he could go to jail for this, right? It must be some sort of animal cruelty, right? Paul shakes his head, his stomach growling loudly. He ate a dog. He ate a dog while it was still  _ alive _ and  _ kicking. _ Had he taken something? Ecstasy? Some kind of LSD? Why can’t he remember— 

He falls off balance, and in a frantic attempt to stand upright again, trips and falls forward into a trash can. 

“ _ Fuck—! _ ” Quickly, he pushes himself up, ignoring the aching pain in his shoulders, flipping onto his side and casting a glance behind him. He sets his gaze on the stranger whose voice had shaken him to the core, and he’s sure his vision has completely gone, because it  _ can’t _ be  _ him. _

“...Marcus?”

His colleague stares at him, eyes wide, as if caught in the act of something malicious. His hand is resting on the dumpster lid and drumming nervously, a nameless tune, against it. Despite being a few feet away (making deciphering facial expressions near impossible), there’s a change in body language in which Marcus seems to recognize him.

“...Paul?” And then Paul’s able to safely confirm: Marcus Halberstam. 

He sighs, relieved. Well, as relieved as he can be. A familiar face seeing him in such a state isn’t the most ideal situation. Hesitantly, he pulls himself to his feet, leaning on the trashcan he’d fallen into. 

Halberstam takes a few steps forward, and something inside Paul is screaming at him to run, to get away. Unconsciously he steps backwards but then thinks better of it. Marcus was a friend. He’d gone out to dinners, clubs, parties with him. He was someone that Paul could trust. 

He eyes the dumpster to see if the dog is visible, but then Marcus shuffles in front of his view not very subtly. His gut clenches at this, and he finds himself worrying more about the person in front of him. 

There’s a thing called  _ foreboding _ , Paul vaguely remembers reading about it in a magazine. It’s the impending sense of dread that something terrible is about to happen. Whether it be sooner, in the near future, or later down the line. It was some spiritual thing that hippie’s believed in. 

“Are you… okay?” Marcus asks lamely, looking him up and down, confused more so than concerned.

He nods, slowly, keeping an eye on his hands (which he’s noticed, adorn leather gloves). Though he curses himself for this,  _ Marcus is a friend _ . “I’m…great,” his voice carries an apprehensive undertone that he can’t help. 

“Christ, Paul, you look like shit,” he says. “Did one of the beggars try and murder you?” 

It’s meant as a joke, but Paul can’t find it in himself to laugh. Marcus also looks incredibly tense saying this, and for some reason, Paul just doesn’t feel like it’s for his sake. 

“No, actually...I don’t know.” He swallows a dry lump in his throat. Their conversation is awkward so far, and neither person wants to get any closer. Paul doesn’t blame him, he can barely stand the smell of his own stench. “Why are  _ you _ here?” 

He comes off more suspicious than he means to, but he’s even more concerned when Marcus suddenly looks uptight. 

“Taking out... _ trash _ .” 

Paul waits for him to elaborate, and shuffles awkwardly when he doesn’t. “I didn’t think you lived over here.”

He wants to see what he’ll say. Paul doesn’t even know where  _ here _ is. 

Then, Halberstam looks pissed. “What happened to your clothes? And” — he points — “your  _ face. _ Have you been dumpster diving?” 

Paul shrinks back. “No! No, I haven’t  _ dumpster dived _ . I was...” He stutters, not knowing the answer to this question. “Uh, drunk! On drugs! Passed out here. Had a...rough night.”

“You seem to be having a  _ lot _ of rough nights recently,  _ Paul _ .” 

The way he says his name has Paul reeling. Terror clawing its way up his stomach.  _ Get out. Get out. You need to leave. You need to run. Go home. Get home. Somewhere safe. Away from here. Something bad is here, something terrible will happen if you stay... _

_ Or has it already happened? _

_ No. _ He shakes that thought away. Nothing horrible happened. He’s  _ fine _ (more or less). 

“Well, it was nice chattin’ with ya, Marcus!” Paul’s knees wobble as he backs away from the trash can he’d fallen into. His gaze is locked onto Marcus’s, and he can’t shake the feeling that there is something terribly,  _ terribly _ wrong with his eyes. “But, uh...I oughta be going...” 

Acid burns his throat, stomach turning unpleasantly. His coworker doesn’t reply, merely staring at him, humming that same song he’d been singing, louder now. It appears as if he’s looking Paul over, but the reason as to why is uncertain. Owen’s frame jerks, a hand clutching his body. He’s going to be sick. Halberstam doesn’t say a word. 

As Paul practically hobbles out of the alleyway to vomit in the nearest cover he can find, he thinks he hears Marcus singing again. The tune is different. A Phil Collins song he thinks, while purging himself off of what he realizes (to his absolute horror) are pieces of  _ dog. _

“ _ I can feel it in the air tonight, oh lord. And I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh lord. Oh lord... _ ” 

* * *

When Bateman arrives in the Subway station, he’s unable to stop shaking, his face is dripping with sweat, and everything...is... _ blue. _

He hears Phil Collins. No, he hears Talking Heads. Madonna. Whitney Houston. Huey Lewis and the News. Robert Palmer. Chris de Burgh. Prince. Queen  _ Les Misérables _ David Bowie AC/DC Cyndi Lauper— 

“Stop stop  _ stop... _ ” Patrick cradles his head, hitting his temples with his palms. “Stop.  _ Stop. _ ”

He’s paid for his entry into the station. He’s pretty sure he did, anyway. It’s all blue. He’s suffocating, and the music is a lot, it’s a  _ lot. _ It’s too fucking much, like when he’d been at Vanities with Bethany. Bethany, who is dead and covered in blood and blue and dissolving in a dumpster in Hell’s Kitchen where he’d come across  _ Paul Owen. _ He’d looked like shit, he’d looked  _ green _ , and that smile was bloodier, wider, and he was so green.  _ We don’t like green. _

The train arrives. Patrick is gasping, leaning against one of the beams, his head aching, the music loud loud loud LOUD.  _ But we like it. _ No, he doesn’t. It’s too much. And he’s crying again and the tears are blue and he can’t remember how we’d killed Bethany and it’s scary because he wants to remember, he  _ needs _ to, he’s forgetting like Paul has forgotten, and he doesn’t know what the fuck that means. 

_ All aboard. _

Finally sitting down inside of the train, the music calms down, if only for a moment. He doesn’t see anyone else in the car, rows of empty seats mocking him, though he’s grateful for it. Nobody will be able to see us freak out, we won’t have to attack anyone else. 

He’s given a moment of clarity, in which he’s sobbing, resting his head against the disgusting, diseased handrails. It’s silent. He’s able to think. 

The sound of sniffling and gasping breaths fills his ears, but it’s him who’s making them, and his chest is tight. Blue shit is dripping into his lap and at first he looks above him to see if the air conditioning vent is the culprit but it’s  _ him. _

Then music is playing again. It’s quiet and muffled, but we recognize it immediately as Phil Collins. 

_ There’s this girl that’s been on my mind, all the time, Su-Sussudio... _

The trashy speaker is reverberating off the cab walls, making his head pound. The voices are all rushing back and Patrick’s wondering who the fuck turned the music on. 

_ Now she don’t even know my name, but I think she likes me just the same... _

“Turn it off—” He groans, yelling over the music that’s just getting louder and  _ louder. _ He’s gonna shove hot fucking coals up the conductor’s ass, melt his insides until they turn into a bowl of goopy flesh and blood— 

_ “TURN IT THE FUCK OFF.” _

_ Su-Sussudio. Whoa-oh! _

It’s not like when he was at Tunnel, it doesn’t feel good anymore. It hurts. The music is just getting louder, pulsing through him, hurting his head. Our nose pours a slimy blue like a waterfall, some getting into our mouth. 

_ Ah, if she called me, I’d be there, I’d come running anywhere... _

We’ve gotten up at some point, waltzing through the subway cab, spinning, twirling. So much movement he can’t comprehend what’s happening because his head hurts so fucking bad and he just wants it to stop. He wants the music to end. He can’t stand it anymore. But we like it, we never want it to stop, it feels so good, it moves through us, guiding us. 

_ She’s all I need, all my life. I feel so good if I just say the word, oh! _

There are voices everywhere, voices that aren’t his own, and he thinks he can recognize a few of them but everyone sounds the same so he isn’t sure, just the same as Paul could not tell the difference between Patrick’s voice and his own. The voicemail. Did Owen ever listen to it? Did Patrick ever leave one?

_ Su-Sussudio! _

Voices, disembodied, singing, music, drums, keyboard, guitar...

_ Now I know that I’m too young, my love has just begun, Su-Sussudio... _

It’s too much. It’s all too much. He just wants it to stop. 

_ We never want it to stop. _

He wants to cry, wants to lie down and sob. 

_ We want to dance, move around, no use in crying. _

He wants to be in control again.

_ We ARE in control. _


End file.
